Orange Glazed Zucchini Bread With Dates

This Orange Glazed Zucchini Bread With Dates is a perfect way to flow into fall. Late summer Zucchini and Early Fall Oranges fuse to create a delicious treat to pair with a warm cup of coffee. Spicy cardamom, Floral saffron and Salty pistachios bring with them a hint of ethnic Pakistani taste and flavor. The first bite will catch you unaware...after the second you won't be able to put your fork down!

Zucchini In a Dessert?

Zucchini is typically a spring and summer vegetable. But due to the excessive heat this year, the shelves have recently been full at my local grocery store. Due to it's bland taste and moist texture it's a perfect ingredient for baking.

Types Of Zucchini Breads

If you try googling, you will find a whole slew of zucchini recipes ranging from zucchini muffins, to a zucchini cake, to lemon zucchini bread and much more. One of my all time favorites is a double-chocolate-zucchini-bread from Sallysbakingaddiction.com. It's a great way to sneak in some veggies for the kids!

Ofcourse, being early fall, making an orange zucchini bread recipe was inevitable. If you've never tried this pairing you're in for a treat! In my honest opinion this is a great twist to classic zucchini bread recipes.

Quick Breads

All zucchini bread recipes come under the category of "Quick Bread Recipe". Quick Breads are those that use leavening agents such as baking soda or powder rather than yeast to make them rise.

Often mixed by hand and baked in prepared bread pans, these are ready in a short amount of time, hence the name. Some of the more popular varieties are banana bread, cornbread and of course zucchini bread!

How To Make The Zucchini Bread

Now to make the simple Orange Glazed Zucchini Bread With Dates. The best part is that you won't need any special equipment as all the ingredient are mixed by hand. The 2 special ingredients, cardamom and saffron, add a lot of fragrance and "oomph" to the recipe, details on where to source them easily are given below!

The Equipment

No need for a hand mixer or food processor in this recipe! Just grab :

• Small Bowl
• Medium Bowl
• Large Bowl
• Large Mixing Bowl

Once you've measured all the ingredients out separately in the assorted bowls, you'll need a large mixing bowl to hand mix everything in. The next things you'll need are:

• Parchment Paper
• Prepared Loaf Pan
• Cake Tester
• Wire Rack

Line the greased loaf pan with the parchment paper, bake the bread, using the cake tester to check when it's done and cool the bread on the wire rack.

Once the cake is fully cooled and iced you'll need an airtight container to store it in.

The Ingredients

The ingredients are simple and fairly standard for quick breads, except for the cardamom and saffron. I swapped out the usual vanilla extract and cinnamon for some traditional Pakistani flavors that pair really well with the orange, dates and pistachios in the bread.

As far as sourcing these ingredients is concerned, more and more ethnic spices are becoming easily available at local stores. Here is a list of places to source what you need for this recipe and others on this blog if you don't want to drive all the way to an Asian Store:

• mortonbassett.com - This brand is often available at local grocery stores.
• www.amazon.com
• www.savoryspiceshop.com
• curiospice.com

Wet Ingredients

• The Zucchini - The first step is to prep the grated zucchini by using a fresh zucchini and the large holes of a box grater. Depending on the size of the zucchini, a single piece can yield a cup of zucchini or more. In this recipe, I got all the shredded zucchini I needed from a single vegetable.
• The Eggs - 2 large eggs help provide essential fat to the bread. This helps act as a binding agent and results in a more moist and light texture.
• The Yogurt - The yogurt has acidity that reacts with the baking soda and helps the bread rise better. Once again, the result is a lighter and fluffier end product.
• The Saffron - Saffron is often added to Pakistani desserts along with cardamom and in this bread it's floral scent really helps enhance the orange flavor.

Dry Ingredients

• The Flour - All purpose flour provides the main base for the bread. Make sure it's fresh for best results.
• The Baking Soda - The baking soda reacts with the acidity in the yogurt and helps the cake rise. Too much can leave a slightly bitter taste, so be precise in your measurements.
• The Salt - I always like to add a pinch of salt to my desserts for the taste, but from the science point of view it helps strengthen the flour by binding with the gluten so is a must in the recipe!
• The Cardamom - Cardamom is warm, sweet, spicy and peppery all in one. It tastes amazing in desserts and creates the perfect fusion between the floral saffron and citrusy orange.

Essential Ingredients

• The Oil - I like to use Canola Oil as it's a neutral oil and a relatively healthy option. Vegetable Oil, Grapeseed Oil and Sunflower Oil are all great alternatives.
• The Sugar - The sugar adds more than just sweetness to the bread. It also helps give the bread a nice brown color and adds considerably to it's texture.

Mix Ins

The Orange Glazed Zucchini Bread With Dates truly gets it's rich taste and depth of flavor from the dates and the pistachios. Since the zucchini is so bland in itself it needs these add ins to really take it up a notch.

Once again, these ingredients pair really well with the orange, saffron and cardamom.

The Recipe for Orange Glazed Zucchini Bread With Dates

Mix The Dry Ingredients

Sift and combine flour, baking powder, salt and the cardamom together in a bowl and set them aside.

Mix The Wet Ingredients

• Saffron - usually needs to be soaked in warm water to activate it's fragrance. Since I didn't want to add any additional liquid, I simply mixed it in room temperature yogurt for 10-15 minutes. The yogurt does become a little acidic when it sits on the counter for a while but this only helps activate the baking soda more!
• Eggs - In the next step, beat the two eggs by hand and mix in with the yogurt and saffron. The threads will automatically dissolve as the bread bakes so don't need to be extracted from the yogurt.
• Oil - After making sure that you've squeezed all the excess water out of the zucchini add it in next along with the half cup of oil. Stir everything in well and then mix it in with the flour mixture.
• Batter - The batter will be dense and lumpy but as soon as all the flour is mixed in, stop mixing. Too much mixing releases gluten and that will make the bread dense.

Bake The Bread

Pour the batter in a parchment lined 9 x 5 inch loaf pan and bake it in a preheated oven at 350 for 30-40 minutes. Cooking time can vary from oven to oven, so it may take you upto 45-50 minutes depending on your oven.

The best way is to set the oven to 45 minutes and start checking with a tester after the 30 minute mark to see how much longer to bake the bread.

Once the bread is ready, cool it completely before icing it so the sweet orange glaze doesn't melt.

Prepare The Icing

While the bread bakes and cools you can start preparing the fresh orange glaze for your bread.

• The Orange - For the orange zest and fresh orange juice I used one orange. The small amount of zest and juice is enough to give a hint of orange. The zested orange rind gives all the necessary hints of citrus without the overpowering taste.
• The Butter - I use softened butter, no need for melted butter as it will solidify anyway.
• Heavy Whipping Cream - The heavy cream is what helps make this a thick glaze. If you want it to be thinner you can use milk instead but I highly suggest the thick version for this recipe.
• Sugar - The cup sugar is what the glaze is really about. Just remember to mix it in slowly to prevent lumps from forming. In the event that you do see lumps, just let the icing sit for a little while and the sugar will dissolve. You can also use an additional teaspoon of cream to help smooth them out if needed.

Storage

Now that your bread is ready the best way to store it is in the fridge in an airtight container. Due to the nature of the ingredients it will last a maximum of 6 days in the fridge (if it lasts that long).

If you want you can bake the bread, cool it and then wrap it in plastic wrap and freeze it for upto 4 months. When you're ready to eat it, just defrost and add the glaze and garnishing and serve!

Other recipes To Try

• pakistani-bakery-style-almond-cake
• coffee-cake-with-buttercream-icing
• cranberry-walnut-irish-soda-bread
• chewy-chocolate-chip-cookie-bars
• easy-scrumptious-pumpkin-bread-recipe

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