Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Delicious Keto Zucchini Bread (Gluten Free & Low Carb)

You’ll love this moist and delicious keto zucchini bread. It’s slightly sweet, packed with hidden veggies, and topped with crunchy walnuts. Yum!

Zucchini bread is a great recipe to make in the summer when your garden is overflowing with zucchini, and you need to find a way to use them all up! But this recipe is so tasty that I predict you’ll want to make it all year round.

I love making low-carb recipes that recreate the taste of my favorite traditional recipes. And this recipe definitely does the trick. This zucchini bread is so good, you won’t believe it’s low carb!

This recipe for keto zucchini bread with walnuts has just the right amount of sweetness. It’s not as sweet as a cake, let’s say, but perfect for breakfast or an afternoon snack with coffee.


Ingredients:


  • 1/2 cup butter softened
  • 3/4 cup erythritol sweetener, like Swerve
  • 5 eggs large
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 cup almond flour
  • 1/4 cup coconut flour
  • 4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • ½ c chopped walnuts
  • 2 cups grated zucchini, about 8oz by weight


Instructions:


  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9"x5" loaf pan, and line with parchment paper.
  2. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sweetener together until light and fluffy.
  3. Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix well to combine. Stir in the vanilla.
  4. In a separate bowl, stir together the almond flour, coconut flour, baking powder, cinnamon, xanthan gum, and salt. Break up any lumps of almond flour or coconut flour.
  5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and stir to combine. (Optionally, add up to 1/2 cup of mix-ins, like chopped nuts or chocolate chips.)
  6. Add the grated zucchini, and fold it in gently.
  7. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 50 - 55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.
  8. If the bread is browning too quickly, you can cover the pan with a piece of aluminum foil.


NOTES:

TIPS FOR BAKING WITH ZUCCHINI:

  • This keto zucchini bread recipe starts off with — you guessed it — fresh zucchini. Zucchini adds moisture, texture, and tons of nutrients to baked goods.
  • I like to grate fresh zucchini using a standard box grater, but you could also grate it with the grater attachment on a food processor.
  • For this recipe, I don’t usually need to remove excess moisture from the zucchini before I add it to the batter. That said, if your zucchini seems especially watery, you may want to remove some moisture before you add it to the bread batter. To do this, use clean hands to squeeze the grated zucchini over a bowl to remove excess moisture. Or, you can place the grated zucchini in a sieve over a bowl and press on it with the back of a spoon to remove moisture.
  • Another tip I recommend is to add the zucchini at the very last stage of the mixing process, and to fold it in gently until just combined.


BAKING WITH LOW CARB FLOUR ON THE KETO DIET:

  • This keto zucchini bread calls for a handful of low-carb baking ingredients. Almost all of them are pretty common — like butter, eggs, baking powder, and salt. And if you do some low-carb baking, you probably already have the rest of them on hand– like almond flour, coconut flour, xanthan gum, and sugar-free sweetener.
  • Now that gluten-free and low-carb diets are becoming more popular, its easy to find almond flour, coconut flour, and even xanthan gum in your local grocery store. If not, you can pick some up online on Amazon.
  • Almond flour is a great low-carb substitute for traditional flour. Look for a blanched almond flour with a super-fine texture for best results. Try to avoid the coarser almond meals, as using it will make your bread too dense. 1 cup of almond flour has about 10 net carbs.
  • Coconut flour is another useful, high fiber, low-carb baking ingredient. Coconut flour is made from ground and dried coconut meat. A little bit of coconut flour goes a long way, so this recipe call for just ¼ cup. ¼ cup of coconut flour has about 6 net carbs.
  • Xanthan gum is a binding agent that takes the place of gluten in this recipe. You can find it in the baking aisle or online.
  • And finally, erythritol (Swerve) gives this keto zucchini bread a bit of sweetness. Even though I used erythritol, you can use any sweetener you like. If you aren’t following a keto diet, you could even use honey or coconut sugar. And all that said, feel free to adjust the sweetener amount depending on how sweet you like your keto pancakes. Remember that most of the sweetness will come from the syrups and toppings you choose.

TIPS FOR KETO BAKING:

  • Keto bread recipes can be a bit trickier to make than traditional wheat flour recipes. Here are some tips to help you make the best keto zucchini bread.
  • Finely grate the zucchini, and wring out excess moisture if necessary.
  • Use a good quality non-stick pan, and prepare it with non-stick spray and a parchment paper “sling” to help you remove the bread once it’s baked.
  • If you find that your zucchini bread is browning too quickly, you can cover the pan with foil. You can cover the pan for the last 15 minutes or so of baking so that the top doesn’t over-brown.
  • Let the zucchini bread cool in the pan. Gluten-free quick-breads are tender and crumbly when warm. So, it’s best to let the zucchini bread cool in the pan before slicing it.