Cardamom Brown Butter Zucchini Bread with Streusel

This recipe was the winner of the 2019 Bartel-Pritchard Greenmarket Zucchini Bread Bake-Off.

It’s prime zucchini season! Grab a few of these colorful summer squashes, crank up your oven (and your AC) and make this spice-scented bread now. To conserve energy, make the muffins, which require only about 20 minutes of oven time. 

You’ll probably gobble these up, but if not, they freeze well too.

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Cardamom Brown Butter Zucchini Bread with Streusel

Author The Irrational Parsnip

Ingredients

Streusel (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

• 1/2 cup rye flour
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup old-fashioned oats not quick-cooking oats
• 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 4 tbsp unsalted butter, softened slightly

Zucchini Bread

• 9 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup rye flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp ground cardamom
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 cups grated zucchini use the large holes of a box grater
• 1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts toast walnuts for 5-7 minutes at 350 degrees

Instructions

Streusel

• In a small bowl, combine all the dry ingredients. Add the butter, mixing until coarse crumbs form. I find the easiest way to do this is with your fingers. Set aside while you make the bread batter.

Zucchini Bread

• In a small saucepan, heat butter over medium-low heat until the milk solids turn a rich, toasty brown color with a corresponding aroma. This should take about 15 minutes. Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t burn. 
• Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease either a 9 x 5 loaf pan or a 12-cup muffin tin, or use paper muffin liners.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together both flours, salt, baking soda and cardamom. 
• In a large bowl, beat eggs, butter, vanilla and sugar until smooth. Stir in grated zucchini.
• Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until just combined. Don’t overdo the mixing! Gently fold in the toasted walnuts. 
• For muffins: spoon into prepared muffin tin, filling each cup about three-quarters of the way full. Sprinkle the streusel topping on each one. Bake immediately for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into one of the muffins comes out with just a few crumbs attached. Cool on a rack for 10 minutes, then turn out onto rack to finish cooling. Or just eat!  
• For loaf: Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and sprinkle streusel on top. Bake for 45 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the load comes out with just a few crumbs attached. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes, then turn out of pan onto the rack to finish cooling.