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Lemon Zucchini Bread-Farm to Table Recipe

Light, moist lemon zucchini bread is a delicious farm to table recipe. If you have fresh zucchini and lemons make this bread. It’s so good.

This lemon bread recipe is perfect for the breakfast table, lunch box, or a party tray.  The optional sweet lemon glaze livens the flavor and adds extra sweetness.

The glaze is totally optional. We ate the first batch without glaze and it went fast. The glaze is a nice finishing touch for more lemony sweet tang.

However, moist zucchini breads like this stand alone just fine.

Zucchini makes delicious quick breads like this one, cakes, casseroles, cookies and muffins.  And so much more.

Lemon Zucchini Bread 1
Light textured zucchini lemon loaf features a sweet, bright lemon flavor. So yummy!

Just one hill can produce more than a family can eat fresh. I freeze zucchini every year so I can make zucchini bread mid winter.

No matter if you grow it or get some from a farmers market or your garden friends Zucchini needs to be in your kitchen!

More Zucchini Bread Recipes:

If you are looking for zucchini bread recipes here are a few more you may enjoy. Also check out my pumpkin zucchini and this Zucchini Cake.

Lemon Zucchini Bread Recipe Notes:

Lemon zucchini bread also looks pretty at a party. The glaze really dresses it up. And adds delicious sweet tangy flavor.

This recipe uses cornstarch to help hold the crumb together. So it cuts very well and presents well on party trays.

Lemon Zucchini Bread With Glaze

Preparation:

These are small things. It will not ruin the bread if you skip them. However, each of these steps has a purpose. To give you the best lemon zucchini bread.

So before you make the batter I recommend you do these things.

  • Grate the zest off the lemon. In a small bowl combine the lemon zest and sugar and mix well. Set aside.
  • Add juice of the lemon to the milk in a separate small bowl. Let stand. (The milk curdles like buttermilk).
  • In a large bowl Sift the flour, cornstarch and baking powder together. Set aside.
  • Zucchini must be shredded and drained of its water for a truly light loaf.

I made zucchini bread for years and never knew about removing some of the juices from zucchini. My bread was always good. BUT it took FOREVER to bake.

The finished bread was heavy, crumbling and often not done in the middle.  I finally found this method to properly prepare zucchini for bread recipes.

If your zucchini is older and dry you can skip this step.

Lemon Zucchini Bread
This time I used Golden Zucchini. The flecks in the bread are the skin and some lemon zest too..

NOTICE the crumb of the lemon loaf pictured above is different from the heavier, moister crumb of the green zucchini pics.

Every time you make this bread the zucchini will determine how moist and heavy your recipe is. However, you can adjust the heaviness of the recipe by taking out unneeded extra zucchini juice.

Lemon Zucchini Bread
Make a loaf to eat. Freeze one for later.

Your Printable Recipe Card:

Zucchini Lemon Loaf
Yield: 2 loaves-24 slices

Lemon Zucchini Bread Recipe

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Light, moist lemon zucchini bread is a nice variation on the standard zucchini bread. Lemon bread with a lemon glaze for an added pop of sweet flavor. It's perfect for breakfast, lunch box, parties or after school snacks.  

Ingredients

Bread ingredients:

  • 3 1/3 Cup all purpose flour
  • 2/3 cup corn starch
  • 4 tsp. Baking powder
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 Cup coconut oil (softened to almost liquid)
  • 2 2/3 Cup sugar
  • 1 whole large lemon (you will need the zest and the juice)
  • 1 Cup milk
  • 2 Cups Zucchini

For the optional Glaze:

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 2 TB lemon juice
  • 1 TB milk

Instructions

  1. Preparation:
  2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  3. Prepare zucchini by grating it.Shredding Zucchini
  4. and tossing it in a bowl with one tsp. salt.Tossing Shredded Zucchini With Sugar
  5. Let sit about 30 minutes until water is released. Squeeze the zucchini to release some of the juices. You need to be a bit discerning here. Some zucchini is dryer than others.Squeezing Juices Out Of Zucchini
  6. Oil two 9 x 5 loaf pans or two twelve hole muffin tins
  7. Grate the zest off the lemon.Zesting A Lemon
  8. In a small bowl combine the lemon zest and sugar and mix well. Set aside.Lemon Zest And Sugar In A Clear Bowl
  9. Add juice of the lemon to the milk in a separate small bowl. Let stand. (The milk curdles like buttermilk).
  10. In a large bowl Sift the flour, cornstarch and baking powder together. Set aside.Pouring Dry Ingredients Into Bowl

Make the batter:

  1. In a large mixing bowl mix together the eggs and coconut oil with a large whisk or electric mixer. Whisking Eggs
  2. Add the lemon zest infused sugar and whisk until thick and pale lemon color.Whisking Lemon Zucchini Bread Batter
  3. Pour in the lemon milk.Adding Curdled Milk
  4. Add in sifted dry ingredients slowly.Sifting Dry Ingredients
  5. Mix until just blended.Stirring Batter-Lemon Zucchini Bread
  6. Fold in zucchini.Mixing Batter

Baking and cooling Instructions:

  1. Pour the batter into the greased loaf pansEvenly Pour Batter Into Oiled Bread Pans
  2. Bake 60 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from heatLemon Zucchini Bread
  3. Cool on rack for ten minutes and then invert the pans to release the bread.
  4. Thoroughly cool the loaves on the rack and then glaze with the lemon glaze if desired.

For the glaze:

  1. Whisk together the ingredients as listed. Adjust the liquid to make the glaze your desired consistency.
  2. The glaze may be spooned on, poured on or drizzled. To drizzle the glaze put the glaze in a sandwich bag a with a teeny hole cut in the corner so you can better control the glaze if desired.Lemon Zucchini Bread

Notes

Tips For best Results:

Grate the zest off the lemon. In a small bowl combine the lemon zest and sugar and mix well. Let sit to blend the lemon flavor into the sugar.
Add juice of the lemon to the milk in a separate small bowl. Let stand five minutes or more. (The milk curdles like buttermilk).
Zucchini must be shredded and drained of its water for a truly light loaf. Follow the instructions above!

  • Use tender, ripe, fresh zucchini
  • Cut out the seeds and grate it.
  • Frozen grated zucchini can also be used if thoroughly drained.

If your Zucchini breads tend to be heavy:

Make a lighter loaf this way:

    • Beat together the eggs, sugar and oil until they are pale and thick like yellow cake batter.
      This step improves the texture and flavor of the loaf. Just follow the recipe instructions and your loaf will have a light lemon flavor and delicious texture.

Loaf Removal TIP: If the bread sticks to the pans after cooling 10 minutes run a knife around the sides of the loaf to release the bread form the bread pan. If the loaf still sticks on the bottom use a spatula to slide under the loaf to release it.

For Muffins:


This recipe makes about 24 muffins. Bake muffins 20 minutes at 350 degrees F. They are done properly when a toothpick inserted into the middle of the muffin comes out clean.Zucchini Lemon Muffins

Cool ten minutes and then remove from tins to cooling racks until room temperature.

Freezing Instructions:

  • Freeze without the glaze after the bread is cooled completely.
  • Wrap the bread in foil (or plastic wrap)
  • Wrap the foil in tightly in plastic wrap, a plastic grocery bag or heavy ziplock freezer bags for long term freezing. (over two months)Zucchini Bread Ready To Go Into The Freezer

Nutrition Information

Yield

24

Serving Size

1

Amount Per Serving Calories 283Total Fat 10gSaturated Fat 8gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 1gCholesterol 32mgSodium 101mgCarbohydrates 45gFiber 1gSugar 27gProtein 3g

Did you make this recipe?

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Are you interested in sourdough baking but don’t know how to get started? Be sure to check out our Beginner Sourdough Bread tutorial. It walks you through every step. And we are always here to help you out. Happy Baking!

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Recipe Adapted from: Lilluna.com

Suzanne Habbershaw

Tuesday 30th of July 2019

I tried this recipe yesterday with great expectations - I love anything lemon and love the rich and moist flavor of traditional zucchini bread. Sadly, the result was not very lemony and din't have enough zucchini to give it a robust zucchini bread look or taste. Unfortunately, not a keeper.

Diane

Tuesday 30th of July 2019

Hi Suzanne, I'm sorry this recipe did not meet your expectations. Thank you for taking the time to comment for us. I will remake this recipe and give it the taste test again. I will certainly adjust the recipe if necessary and let you know if I think you'll appreciate the update. As you know zucchini changes throughout the season and we use garden grown zucchini so that may account for the zucchini flavor. For more lemon flavor I recommend more lemon zest. maybe double it? All the best and have a great day.

April J Harris

Tuesday 8th of September 2015

Your Zucchini Lemon Loaf sounds delicious, Diane. I really like the addition of the lemon! Stumbled and shared. Thank you so much for being a part of the Hearth and Soul hop.

Debra @ Bowl Me Over

Friday 28th of August 2015

Boy does this look yummy! I'm so glad you made the party and came over to share at #TryaBiteTuesday! What a delicious treat!! Pinned & shared!!

homemadefoodjunkie

Friday 28th of August 2015

Me too Debra! So many fun posts to enjoy at your party! Thank you for sharing!

Dini

Thursday 27th of August 2015

I love that you added lemon to the zucchini loaf! I can imagine that they would have smelled amazing! :D Plus it qualifies as veggies - so a big slice will be part of my 5 plus a day? :) Thank you for sharing this with us at #saucysaturdays!

homemadefoodjunkie

Thursday 27th of August 2015

Absolutely Dini. Enjoy!

jennifer

Tuesday 25th of August 2015

I could eat a dozen of these and not feel guilty because they have veggies in them!!

homemadefoodjunkie

Tuesday 25th of August 2015

HaHa!, Jennifer. Exactly!

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