This year in my garden I decided to plant two zucchini plants, thinking about some yummy roasted vegetables in my future. I never would have thought that those TWO plants would have me up to my ears in zucchini. My first harvest I had six very large ones, left the plant for a week to deal with the ones I already picked and found a dozen more! Some are the small roasting kind but most of them are the big kind that really can only be used for baking. Where do you turn when you have so many zucchini that you can’t even think what to do with it all? PINTEREST of course after looking at different recipes for about an hour I decided to use this one for Zucchini Brownies, or at least base my recipe off of it

I am all about trying to make things healthier or more organic since that is the way my family eats; more on our clean eating lifestyle on a later post. I tried to not use sugar for anything in the past and would substitute honey or maple syrup, but gave into my sugar cravings during my last pregnancy and have started to use organic sugar instead.  You can use organic for this recipe or not, it is completely up to you! Here is what you will need:

Zucchini Brownies

1 1/2 cups Organic Whole Wheat White Flour (I use King Arthur’s)
1/2 cup Organic All-Purpose unbleached Flour (again, King Arthur’s is what I use)
1/2 cup Cocoa Powder (didn’t have organic for this, but you can use it)
1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Salt
1/2 cup Organic Coconut Oil
1 cup Organic Cane Sugar
2 tsp Organic Vanilla Extract
2 cups Shredded Zucchini
3-5 Tbsp Water
Frosting
3 Tbsp Cocoa Powder
1/4 cup butter, melted (could use coconut oil if you want to do dairy free)
2 cups Powdered Sugar
1/4 cup Milk (or almond milk)
1 Tbsp Organic Vanilla Extract
pinch of Salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 9×13 baking dish. I used parchment paper, because I am a little obsessed with it! Whisk together, flours, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and set it aside. Mix together the oil, sugar, and vanilla with and electric mixer until it is well combined. Next add the dry ingredients and mix. The mixture will be powdery and make you think you are doing this all wrong! Add the zucchini and it should be less powdery, if it is still powdery though add 3-5 tablespoons of water. My zucchini was very wet so I did not end up using the water in my recipe, it all depends on you zucc! Spread the mixture into your baking dish and Bake for 25-30 minutes. You can tell it is finished if the brownies spring back when they are gently touched.

To make the frosting, quite possibly the yummiest part of these brownies ;), whisk together the butter, cocoa powder, salt and powdered sugar. Next add the milk and vanilla and whisk it all together until smooth. Pour over the cooled brownies and put in the fridge until semi-set. These are more like cake then brownies, so make sure that you serve them with a fork My family devoured our pan in 2 days, but in order for them to keep longer then this be sure to put them in an air tight container and put them in the fridge.

Enjoy this ooey-gooey goodness and remember there is healthy stuff in there so eat as many as you want 😉