Bacon cheddar zucchini bread - Eat Well Recipe - NZ Herald (2024)

FAQs

Why is my zucchini bread soggy? ›

"The problem with (zucchini) when baking is its high moisture content. After shredding, be sure to squeeze the zucchini well to remove as much moisture as possible. A clean dish towel or several layers of paper towels work. If you skip this step, the batter will have too much moisture and won't cook through."

In baking, consider zucchini as an ingredient similar to bananas or applesauce. It adds a wonderful texture and moistness to baked goods, and helps bulk up cakes and breads and muffins with a boost of nutrition, too! Zucchini has such a mild flavor that it pairs beautifully with everything from cinnamon to chocolate.

But unless your zucchini is excessively juicy, squeezing the squash could be removing some of the moisture you really do want in the bread. It's up to you, though. Squeeze for lighter, drier bread. Leave it as is for denser, moister bread.

Slice and salt zucchini in advance of cooking to draw out some of the vegetable's excess moisture (while also seasoning it more thoroughly). To do this, cut up a pound of zucchini and toss it with ½ teaspoon of table salt. Let it drain in a colander for about 30 minutes before patting it dry and cooking it.

A medium zucchini will result in approximately 1 cup of shredded zucchini. If you happen to be using a larger zucchini and the seeds are large, cut the zucchini lengthwise and use a spoon to scoop out the seeds.

There's no need to peel the zucchini or remove the seeds. You also shouldn't press or squeeze any of the excess moisture out of it. You want all that to go into the bread!

The most common reason for zucchini breadand other quick breads (and cakes) to collapse as they cool is the ingredients are too vigorously or quickly mixed, which incorporates lots of less stable air bubbles into the batter.

We'll go over this in more detail below, but in short - If you're looking for the safest way to store zucchini bread - just refrigerate it. Seal your bread in a plastic storage container or plastic bag and store it in the refrigerator.

You can just take handfuls of grated zucchini and squeeze them over the sink or a bowl, or you can wrap the grated zucchini in a clean towel, and twist it to get rid if the water. Heat the oven to 350 F, return the bread to the oven, and bake for another 10 to 20 minutes.

The main issue here is that the bread just isn't cooked through. Zucchini bread batter is thick, and loaf pans are narrow and tall, so there is a lot of batter in a relatively small pan. The center will be the last to cook through, so pay special attention to this area when checking your bread for doneness.

How do you make bread less soggy? ›

Packaged bread from the supermarket often benefits from being toasted. To prevent your sandwich from getting soggy, try lightly toasting just one side of the bread in your toaster oven, and let that toasted side serve as the inside of your sandwich.