Zucchini muffin ズキニマフィン

I was not familiar with zucchini when I arrived in U.S. many years ago. (I wasn't the only one who didn't recognize zucchini. When my mother came for a visit and I made fried zucchini, she asked me why I was frying the cucumber). To me, even now, I find it it to be a rather taste-less vegetable. So when I encountered "zucchini bread", I did not quite understand the idea of putting this vegetable in bread. For that matter, carrot cake was also strange to me. Why put vegetables in cake?  But I learned that both zucchini bread and carrot cake are really good. You really do not taste the vegetable (especially zuccchini) but it makes a very moist cake and bread without adding too much fat or eggs. (I also surmise that this would be a good vegetable delivery system for kids since they would be eating vegetables without knowing it). My wife got zucchini and egg plant and I made ratatouille  as per her request but we had one more zucchini left so my wife decided to make zucchini muffins (using a zucchini bread recipe from "Beard on Bread").

If you would like to hide the fact it has vegetables, you could peel the green skin but we did not.  You can see some green zucchini and walnuts. Walnuts definitely add taste and texture in a very positive way.

The picture below shows them just as they came out of the oven and the muffin tins.

Ingredients (for 12 muffins):
3 eggs
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups grated raw zucchini (#1 and 2)
3 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups AP flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup coarsely chopped (toasted) walnuts

Directions.
Beat the eggs until light and foamy. Add the sugar, oil, zucchini and vanilla and mix. (This appears to be the "secret" of this bread. In effect it is an emulsion of the eggs, sugar and oil--almost a sweet mayonnaise #3.) Combine the flour, salt, baking powder and soda, cinnamon and add to the egg-zucchini mixture. Stir until well blended (#4), add nuts. Using an ice cream scope fill the muffin tin (#5). Bake pre-heated 400F oven for 22 minutes (#6). (For loaf, two 9x5x3 inch loaf pans and bake at 350F for one hour). Let the muffins cool a bit and remove from the muffin tins to finish cooling (#7 & #8)

This is a really great muffin. It is very moist and not too sweet (my wife reduced the sugar). The egg sugar emulsion results in a very nice texture. The nuts provide an additional flavor as well as texture. These are perfect for breakfast.