Orange Zucchini Bread
The hints of citrus and juicy zucchini in this bread will just have you holding onto summer for just a little longer.
Happy Monday friends! Happy Labor Day! I hope you are having a relaxing weekend with your family.
It’s back-to-school season and I got together with some graduate student friends to bring you a themed series on life as a student blogger. This week we are featuring recipes that are low-budget/cost-saving for The Starving Grad/Undergrad Student. This orange zucchini bread definitely fits that bill as it is not only quick to whip up, it uses summer’s juicy vegetable to give you a delicious treat!
But let me back up for a minute. I am sure most of you know, I am a graduate student by day. I am pursuing my PhD in Neuroscience and as fancy as that sounds, it gets exhausting from time to time. I actually started baking (and ultimately blogging) as a way to destress and do something that I love outside of reading science. Little did I know that blogging was a whole other full time job!! But I love it and can’t see myself stopping. Time management skills have yet to be mastered and for now I run on sleep deprivation. I am working on it!
When things get challenging and I need more hours in the day, I rely on quick snacks and breakfasts to make it through the day. Most times, I crave healthy hearty snacks that will boost my energy but being a baker, I love making quick sweets for snack time. This orange zucchini bread was my lifeline this August as I made it twice!! Thanks to my father-in-law’s garden that was supplying us with endless zucchinis, I was enjoying this summer harvest vegetable.
I love sweet bread recipes because they are always so simple to make (perfect for my crazy life) and are ALWAYS moist. This orange combination today was inspired by Allie, over at Baking a Moment. She made a gorgeous zucchini cake a few weeks ago that just sounded perfect. I knew I had to try that combo. And I am so glad I did because this orange zucchini bread was just as delicious as I thought. The hints of citrus and juicy zucchini in this bread will just have you holding on to summer for just a little longer 🙂
Orange Zucchini Bread
The hints of citrus and juicy zucchini in this bread will just have you holding onto summer for just a little longer.
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- 3 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1¾ cup sugar
- 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 teaspoon orange vanilla extract (or vanilla extract)
- Zest of one orange
- 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed orange juice
- 2½ cups finely grated zucchini
- ½ cup pecans, chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a large loaf pan (9 x 5) with baking spray and set aside.
- Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and ginger in a medium bowl.
- Whisk together the eggs, sugar, and olive oil in another medium bowl until combined. Add in the vanilla extract, zest, and orange juice. Beat until well combined. Add the flour mixture in one addition and stir until combined. Stir in the zucchini and pecans.
- Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 50-55 minutes until golden brown bread and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Let bread cool in pan for 10 mins, then turn out and cool completely on a cooling rack.
Recommended Products
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Show our #gradstudentbloggers and #undergradstudentbloggers your support! Check out the whole list of featured Starving Student recipes now:
Brussel Sprouts and Sausage Pizza via Bacon Egg Cheese(cake)
Strawberry Greens Salad via Go Bake Yourself
Chicken and Jalapeno Quesadillas via PicNic
Chocolate Sea Salt Date “Caramel” Bars (GF, V, Raw) via Wallflour Girl
Homemade Spaghetti with Garlic, Chili, and Herbs via Daisy and the Fox
Orange Zucchini Bread via Blahnik Baker
As a fun bonus to this roundup, we asked today’s student bloggers some fun, wacky questions about their (im)balanced school/blogger lives: read their answers now on our hostess’s blog, Wallflour Girl!
Want to join, or know a university food blogger who would? We would love to have you: email Ala at wallflourgirl@gmail.com to sign up!
The #gradstudentblogger and #undergradstudentblogger series showcases the lives and talent of insanely busy food bloggers from across all stages of their higher education pathway. Thank you for joining us, and we hope to see you again in two weeks!
Other Quick Breads you WILL LOVE:
Sounds fab and I’m always amazed at how you have the time to be a student and to run a blog.
Ooh, Zainab – this is my kind of sweet bread! Totally bookmarking and pinning this now to bake this week. Will check back in to let you know how it went! :))
I hope you try it!!
I love sweet breads so much–you’re right, they are totally easy to whip up (yay for no free time) and soooo budget-friendly (yay for being poor!). But seriously, I love all your recipes and zucchini breads are the best, so if you’ve made it twice already then I absolutely must give it a shot. SO glad to have you on board with this series, it’s going to be a blast and I can’t wait to hear more about your grad life! I’m loving it already!
I can’t tell you how happy this new blog segment makes me!!!!!!! 😀 I’m pursuing a post graduation diploma in marketing and it drains even the slightest vestige of energy from me at the end of the day and I still have to stay awake like an owl to get the blog functioning without any issues! But I love every minute of it and this recipe is just perfect when I need something real quick and can’t have a proper sit down meal. If a simple course as marketing wears me down I can totally imagine how much MORE difficult it must be for you when it comes to managing everything and can I say, you do so BRILLIANTLY!!!!!! :* :* This zucchini bread with the lovely citrus-y orange is the perfect example of that!
Orange and zucchini is such a fresh combination. I love sweet bread for breakfast and afternoon snack 🙂
What a great flavor combo (and blogging series), Zainab! This bread looks delicious!
This orange zucchini combination sounds amazing and has been calling my name to try it! Judging from your blog, I would say your time management skills are pretty awesome! I love your creations!
I’ll be following along on this series too, because even though I have been out of college a very long time I am trying to cook more on a budget these days with looming college expenses…I’m a year away from sending my oldest son! Your bread looks delicious…pinning!
This bread looks incredible, and I love the addition of the orange. I use orange anywhere I can! Pinning. 🙂
Thanks Marcie!!
Hi! Another neuroscience PhD student here (Nicole from PicNic!). This bread sounds fantastic! I love the flavor combinations that you have incorporated 🙂
So glad to meet you Nicole!! We ought to catch up soon and share our experiences. I presume culturing neurons is the same is different continents 🙂
Divine! I never would have thought to add orange to zucchini. Sounds fabulous!
Hope you had a great weekend!
Thanks Melanie! Orange was a great addition!!
You are amazing with all that you do. This bread looks super amazing. I haven’t ever tried a tang of orange in my zucchini bread. It sounds pretty darn yummy!
You will love orange with your zucchini bread!!