I tend to grow too many cucumbers. Last year I canned over 40 jars of pickles. The problem is that we are not big pickle eaters. Everyone I know got pickles for Christmas and any other holiday or occasion I could think of. I'm trying to start a new gift giving trend! I've already harvested over twenty pounds of cucumbers this year. I still have nine jars of pickles in the pantry from last year and just added eight new ones.
I decided it was time to look for other options to use cucumbers besides pickling!
Thanks to Google searching I discovered that you can make cucumber bread much like zucchini bread. I decided to try making Eggless Chocolate Cucumber Banana QuickBread because I figure that everything tastes better with chocolate!
I assembled the ingredients: flour, dried cherries, vanilla, almonds, salt, sugar, olive oil, bananas, cinnamon, allspice, cucumbers and cocoa The recipe ended up using two cucumbers, so this is probably not going to put a dent into my cucumber supply unless I eat a ton of bread! However, friends, relatives, coworkers and neighbors may be more happy to receive bread instead of another jar of pickles!
Tip: Use a food processor to grate the cucumber. I didn't and would have preferred smaller pieces and less cucumber chunks in the bread. I then mashed up the banana, mixed the rest of the ingredients, put it in the oven and waited.
Out came my first ever cucumber bread:
I honestly did not taste a drop of cucumber in the bread. I used the Special Dark cocoa powder, which gave it a very strong chocolate flavor to mask any hint of cucumber. It did turn out very, very moist. Tip: Drain the shredded cucumber to reduce the moisture. I also wouldn't mind if it was a bit sweeter, which is probably because of the dark cocoa powder I used.
Overall, this was a delightfully different way to eat garden fresh cucumbers! Do you have delightfully different ways to use cucumbers? If so, I would really like some suggestions before I get buried in pickles, again!
Shared on the Homestead Hop.
