view sourceprint? 01 Ramblings from a Ranch Wife: Zucchini

Random Thought:

"The darkest nights produce the brightest stars"
~


Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Zucchini

We woke up to a skiff of snow yesterday morning.  TR got pretty excited when he saw it on the deck and thought I should get the snow shovel out and shovel it off the deck.  Can you imagine me in my pj's and flip flops shoveling snow?!!  Fortunately for me it had all burned off by the time I got dressed for the day.

The skiff of snow did put me in a baking mood though.  In August my friend Timmy gave me a couple of 8 ball zucchini.  Normally they are dark black in color and a little bigger than an 8 ball (hence the name).  These were 8 ball zucchini on steroids.  I think I got about 20 cups of shredded zucchini, and about 20 lbs.  Who wants to bake in a house without air conditioning in August?  Not me, so I froze it all in 4 cup increments, thinking that When I was ready to make zucchini bread I would just pull out a package and go.  Great in theory right?

My first problem was that the recipe I found only called for 2 cups of zucchini.  No biggie, I'll just double the recipe I thought.  So I started mixing the 4 cups zucchini, 6 eggs, 4 cups of  sugar, 2 cups of oil etc.  My mixer was full before I could even think about the dry ingredients.  That's alright  I'll just use my really really big bowl, and everything fit.  So I am sitting there looking at all of this batter thinking to myself what was I thinking?  I don't even have 4 bread pans, and I already have a loaf of cinnamon bread rising on the oven.  Stop the Presses!  Light bulb has come on!  I will make muffins!

So I drag out the muffin tins.  3 dozen mini muffins later in the nonstick pan, 1 dozen regular muffins in the Pam coated muffin tin, I remembered that I actually had those nifty paper cups that you put in the tins and you have less clean up etc.  Oops!  That's alright though, one pan is non stick and the other one I used Pam on, and just enough batter left for 1 loaf of bread.  I was even able to fit everything in the oven at the same time!

This would be a great time to mention that I hate my cook stove.  For one thing, it doesn't heat evenly, and it is about 25 degrees colder than what it says it is.  For two, it isn't level.  But guess what, I forgot all of that.  Within about 15 minutes it was smoking, and smelled like burnt sugar.  No big deal, it's probably just burning off something that boiled over previously.  (If you wondered, I don't bake often)! 

The timer went off and yep, sure enough everything was done.  Some more than others.  Some a lot more than others.  Some were black.  Only 4 were really black, and they were easily removed from evidence.  TR was excited, but I made him wait until they cooled off  so we wouldn't get burned.  Mini muffins would be perfect for him.  After 5 minutes I couldn't handle the "Mom.....Mom.....MOM!!!" anymore and went to get him a muffin.  Guess what.  That's right.  Those bad boys were not coming out of that tin for anything.  Non stick my foot!  We improvised and ate half a tin of mini muffins with a fork.  They weren't that great.


Mine didn't come out like this.  This is what I envisioned my zucchini bread looking like, but no such luck.

What I learned yesterday morning:

1.  Make sure you like a recipe before you use half a dozen eggs, 6 cups of flour and 4 cups of sugar doubling it.
2.  Wilton lies.  Just because they say their muffin tin is non stick doesn't mean it is. 
3.  If you have those nifty little paper liners, use them!  Then you might not even have to wash the tin when you are done.  (Mine is still soaking).
4.  Just because 3 muffin tins and 2 loaves of bread will fit in your oven should you try to bake all of them at the same time.  Next time we will try maybe 2 muffin tins at a time, or 2 loaves of bread at a time....If we ever try again!

Oh yeah, and if you have a really good zucchini bread recipe, I still have 16 cups/pounds in my freezer!

1 comment:

  1. Omgosh...been there and done that! Sometimes I just want to throw half of it away because I made too much to begin with!

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