QUICKBREADS: Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Recipe from Penzey's Harvest 2003 catalog.

3 large eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup veg. oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 TB butter
6 TB natural cocoa powder
2 cups zucchini, grated
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2/3 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
2 tsp flour
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. In a large mixing bowl, combine eggs, sugar, oil and vanilla extract. Mix until well blended. In a small saucepan, melt 2 TB butter, add 6 TB cocoa powder and blend together until smooth. Set aside to cool. Peel and grate the zucchini. Add zucchini and cooled cocoa mixture to the large mixing bowl and blend well. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add dry ingredients to the batter. Stir only enough to blend in all the dry ingredients. In another small bowl, coat the chocolate chips with 2 tsp flour. This helps prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the pan. Add the flour-coated chocolate chips to the batter. Spoon the batter into two generously greased and floured 9x5x3 loaf pans. Bake for 60-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 5-10 minutes. Remove from pans and continue to cool on a wire rack.

Prep time: 15 minutes

Baking time: 60-70 minutes

Yield: 2 loaves

Tasted good but I would make a couple changes to the recipe next time:
only 1 1/2 cups sugar (don't like things too sweet)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
I never peel zucchini
would use 2 - 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 3/8 loaf pans so the loaves wouldn't be so flat