Real Food Live | Maple Zucchini Bread

Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of Real Food Live

Thank you so so much for tuning in. My name is Alina and I'm a holistic nutritionist, also your lead editor here at the Hearty Soul

And I'm going to be hosting today's show. Now if you've been watching for a little while, you may realize that Talia is not here right now

She usually hosts the show. She is unfortunately no longer able to do this show

But we want to thank her so much because she did an amazing job and we wish her all the best

So you're going to see me in the meantime filling in for a couple of weeks. Get used to this face

So yeah, let's get started. We are going to have Marianne doing comments as usual behind the scenes

So if you have questions about the nutrition or substitutes of the ingredients, just write

them in and she will read them out to me. Thank you. Okay, cool

So today what we are going to be making is maple zucchini bread

So you know what this recipe is actually perfect for? This is for one of those mornings or those 3pm snack times when you really really are

craving that healthy baked treat. You know you're like looking at the apple and maybe those almonds or celery sticks and

you're like, I know I should but all I really want is that muffin

I just want like a nice muffin or like a warm banana bread and you have that little craving

This is perfect for that time. You can allow yourself to indulge a little in this because it is much healthier than

what you're going to get from like a coffee shop downstairs. So in particular, this recipe is gluten free

It is also 100% dairy free. It's also vegan or actually you can make it vegan because we are using eggs but I'm going

to show you how to do a replacement for eggs if you don't have animal products or you know

you're sensitive to eggs. And there's one more thing. This recipe is actually grain free

So that means there's absolutely no grains used. It's not even like we're using gluten free grains

There's no grains whatsoever. So you may actually be wondering, Alina how the heck are you actually going to make a

bread? It sounds like there's no ingredients in this recipe. Are you just mixing a zucchini and banana and voila

No, we are actually going to be using some other grain free flours, coconut flour and

almond flour which I'll talk a little bit more about. But you know what, this is great for anyone who has a leaky gut or maybe just some digestive issues

You suffer a lot from like gas and bloating. Anyone who has a bit of like autoimmune condition as well and trying to eat a bit more paleo

This is also beneficial for that because coconut flour is very like, it's non-irritating to

the gut. So it's usually a safe option for a lot of people. Okay I have talked a lot about this

Now we're actually going to dig in and get started. So on the right hand side over here, we do have our wet ingredients and on the left hand

side we have the dry ingredients. The zucchini is on the wrong spot

That should be, there we go, in the wet ingredients pile. So we're going to start off with a banana

Now with this banana, you may notice that it is brown. That's okay

That's not a bad thing. Especially for baking, what you want is the banana to be ripe

Usually it has a lot of spots on it because the riper it is, the better it's going to be for baking

It's going to be like sweeter and more moist in your baking

Now the second it is ripe, you do want to try and put it in the fridge if you're trying to bake tomorrow, which is exactly what I did

I saw it spotting yesterday. I put it in the fridge and then it will become more brown or black

Don't worry. That's okay. It'll stay fine. So what we're going to do now is peel this banana

It's okay if there's a few spots on there. I'm going to take those out. Okay

So let's take a couple of these spots out. And that's fine

So what I like about bananas guys, is that they lend a lot of sweetness to a baking recipe

A lot of moisture without the need for added sweeteners, right? And the great thing is this comes with fiber

So you're not only getting the sweetness, you are also getting a lot of fiber. Yeah

Which is great for your gut health. There's a lot of potassium in bananas

So that is excellent for our nervous. You know what? Did not think this through

There we go. We're going to mash it like this. I'm going to use my fork. I'm just going to mash away at it

It doesn't need to be like a paste. You just need a rough general consistency

So yeah. Bananas. By the way, you can switch out, I learned this recently, you can switch out a whole

egg with a banana too sometimes if you want. If you don't want to use eggs, you can just add in an extra banana. Okay

That looks like it's good enough. It is mashed. So next what we're going to do is we're going to add in our grated zucchini

So I have here a whole zucchini. So that was a whole banana. You have a zucchini

You're just going to plop that in there. I'm going to finish grating that one as well just to show you how it's done

So bring that over here. Now zucchini, a lot of people don't realize, is also pretty high in vitamin C. And as we

know, vitamin C is not only good for our immune health, but it's also amazing for your skin

It helps the formation of collagen, which is the protein in your hair and your skin

and your nails. So you got to love the vitamin C. This also has a lot of vitamin A in it, which is great

for your vision. Of course, we have the fiber. And you may notice zucchini is actually really great in baked goods

You may have seen chocolate zucchini muffins out in cafes and coffee stores

And yeah, used in breads like these as well. So there we go

That's all you need to do. You can throw off the end here. And you don't need to get rid of the peel

I know some people think they need to get rid of it. That's where a lot of the nutrients lie, within the skin, right underneath the skin as well. Okay

I think I have made a bit of a mess here, but that is fine. I'm going to rinse off my hands for a second. Okay

So now that we have the zucchini and the banana in there, what you want next is to add in eggs

So these are two eggs. And I will make that a bit cleaner

Here's a trick I learned with eggs recently, guys. So when you're baking, you don't want the eggs to be cold right out of the fridge

Because if you're going to do that and then put it into your baking mix, it's going to

throw off the baking times. The recipe may say, hey, it's for an hour

But if you use really, really cold eggs and you add them in, that might turn into like

an hour 15. So just make sure you use room temperature eggs. Okay

So we've whisked two eggs. And we are mixing it together right now

There we go. I'm trying to put that there in the middle. I know I'm making this a little bit messy perhaps. Okay

Next we're just going to add in some maple syrup. This is a quarter cup maple syrup, which I know it looks like a little bit right now

But if you think about it, a quarter cup of maple syrup is being used for an entire loaf

of bread to just add a hint of sweetness. So it's not that much at all

It's so much better than using white or brown sugar. There's so many trace minerals in here

There's magnesium in here. You have some electrolytes. So it is very good for you

And I am definitely a fan of maple syrup because we're in Canada

And that's the stereotype. So it's true. We do like maple syrup

Last you're just going to add in a teaspoon of olive oil just to help smooth this out

a little bit more. So that is all of our wet ingredients there. Now all we're going to do is mix, mix, mix

It is going to be a little bit watery right now, but that's okay. That's where the dry ingredients come in. Okay

So I'm going to put this off to the side right now, the back. And next we're going to move on to the dry ingredients

And I have made a little bit of a mess here, but that's okay. Okay

So with the dry ingredients, guys, like I said, the main flours that we are using are

coconut and almond. So what I love about these two flours, so we're using one cup of almond meal and we're

using half a cup of coconut flour. What I love about both of these is that they are much higher in protein

So I was surprised to learn that almond flour has 24 grams of sugar in one cup

So this right here is like half a chicken breast, I believe, in protein, maybe a little

bit more. So it's pretty good for a flour that you're baking with

And almond flour is full of vitamin E, and vitamin E is amazing for our hormonal health

for again, for our hair, skin, and nails. So I'm going to use a new fork actually

So yeah, almond flour is amazing for your hair, skin, and nails

Because bread, I think, is actually pretty good for anyone who's looking to improve their skin health overall and hormonal health

Okay, so we just mix those two together a bit. Coconut flour also has a lot of fiber, which is great

Also amazing for gut health. Now what we're going to do next is add in a little bit of baking soda

Of course, we always need that to help things rise. Going to add in a bit of sea salt

Again, sea salt, or it can be Himalayan pink salt. Doesn't matter that much

They both have awesome trace minerals, just in different quantities. And we're also going to add in some cinnamon

Now cinnamon, you want to make sure, or as much as you can, do try to buy cinnamon that

is Ceylon cinnamon. So there's a couple different varieties. There's Kasia cinnamon, I think there's Saigon cinnamon, and then Ceylon, which is C-E-Y-L-O-N

This is sort of a healthier cinnamon, if you will, only because it doesn't have the other

types, Kasia, they can be a little bit toxic to the liver over time

So definitely do look for that Ceylon cinnamon. You can usually find it in health food stores if you're not getting it at your regular supermarket

And of course, it's really good for just, you know, if you're trying to balance your

blood sugar levels. I believe we have a question. Yes, what is the question

Yep, we have Lakin who says, wow, this looks so yummy. Okay, awesome

Thank you, Lakin. I'm glad you think it looks yummy. It is actually very yummy

So last thing that we are going to add in is actually flax seeds

And I wanted to talk about the flax seeds a little bit. So flax seeds are really high in omega-3

And omega-3, as we know, is good for our brain, good for our heart health, memory concentration

all those awesome things. Very anti-inflammatory. But in order to actually release those oils and get the most out of those omega-3s, what

you have to do is grind it down. So when you eat the whole flax seed, you're not getting that much of the nutrients

You want to actually use a spice grinder or I have a coffee grinder over here

I've never used this for coffee. I just use it for making fresh spices at home

And also for grinding down chia seeds or flax seeds. So you want to add that in there, which we're going to do right now

And that's going to help release those omega-3 oils and make sure you get that benefit

But of course, since omega-3s are actually pretty delicate and fragile in nature, they

can oxidize really quickly. So that means they're sensitive to heat and light

So you want to do this in small portions at a time

Maybe don't do a whole bucket of flax and just leave it there on the counter

Maybe small, small portions, maybe like a quarter cup, couple of tablespoons as you

need it. Leave it in the fridge in a cool, dark place

I believe we have another question. Yes? Lauren says, does it taste like regular bread

So it may actually taste even better. So of course, I would compare this more to like a banana bread consistency

This isn't like your regular bread that you're going to have like as toast in the morning

but more it's like that little bit of sweetness, banana bread that you can put some, you can

still put some butter on it, put some nut butter on it. It's great

Okay, so we're going to go ahead and grind this flaxseed right now. Bear with the noise for a second. Okay. Okay

I believe that's done. And you can actually smell it

You can smell the release of those fresh oils. I don't know if people on this side of the counter here who are working can as well

but it smells really, really good. So I don't know if the camera is getting this

This is what it looks like. And we just add it right in

And what I'm going to do actually at the same time, now that all of our ingredients are

ready, I did want to talk about those substitutions for eggs as well

So this is for anyone who doesn't eat animal products or is just sensitive to eggs

What you can do is make a flax egg. So we're going to add in another tablespoon again of flax and you're going to mix it with

around two and a half tablespoons of water. And what you do then is you just mix them together and you leave it aside for around

10 minutes and you should see that it gelatinizes. It's sort of like this gooey jelly type of texture

And essentially it's trying to mimic the eggs texture when it comes to binding it in a recipe

So I'm just going to show you how to do that if anyone here is vegan and you don't want

to use eggs. Okay, I'm going to grind again. Okay, so we're just going to add this to a separate little bowl over here

We have our flax meal. We're going to take some water. I'm actually just going to grab a quick, some tablespoons, you know what, we're just going

to use this. Going to use my glass of water. Two and a half tablespoons of some filtered water

And we're just going to mix that up a little bit. I don't know if you guys are catching this, it's not that hard, but you can just sort

of leave that at the side and add that in instead of the eggs if you wanted

We can come back to this at the end again and you can see how it's gelatinized

Okay, so we have our dry ingredients. Now we have to get our wet ingredients and we're just going to mix the two

So usually it is best practice to try and add the dry ingredients to the wet ones

So we're just going to do that over here. Hi, we have another question. Yes

Alright, so we have a couple of questions. Okay, amazing. The first from Priyanka is, do chia seeds need to be grinded too

Ah, that's a great question. Okay, so only when you're making a chia egg

So yeah, if you're making a chia egg as an egg replacement, definitely grind the chia seeds

You're going to get a much better result. But otherwise if you're making a chia pudding or just eating them regularly, adding them

into anything, no, they don't need to be grinded down. But flax seeds, yes. Flax seeds, no matter what, need to be grounded, grinded down

Okay, next question. And then Emma says, can we use honey instead of maple syrup

What other alternatives would you suggest? Ah, so yeah, I actually would say honey, raw honey would be a good one to add in instead

of that maple syrup. It's similar in terms of sort of its sweetness profile

So can definitely add that in. If you wanted, you could probably, and I'm not sure of the exact substitution with this

you could probably just add in a bit more banana as well. So yeah, I think you can do that

Okay, any other questions right now? Okay, great. So there we go, we've mixed it

It doesn't need to be like super smoothed down, just generally mixed together

And then what we're going to do is we're going to get our loaf pan

And this is a trick I learned recently. Maybe you guys already knew this, but I was just not good at this

Is when you are lining something with parchment paper, especially a loaf pan, what I used

to do was just take the whole parchment paper and just try to stuff it in

And then you notice that the corners are uneven and your bread's coming out a little bit wonky

I learned this hack on YouTube where you cut two parchment paper pieces, you line one this

way and you line the other one that way, and therefore it makes your life much easier

So the first thing we're going to do though, before we even do that, we are going to just

have a little bit of avocado oil here I'm using, or you can use coconut oil, whatever

oil you want just to grease a little bit. So you're going to grease away

Just doing that, that's going to help smooth it down. So you're going to cut this strip to the width of this

Ours is not exact, but that is okay. It will... Actually, that's actually perfect

There we go. See how that sticks down so nicely? Now you're going to take your brush again and just line some oil on top over there and

then stick this piece of parchment paper the other way. And again guys, try to use parchment paper, not aluminum foil if possible, just because

as new research is coming out with aluminum oil and its links to potentially dementia

and those kinds of things, you want to be a bit more careful and a bit more cautious

And now again, you're just going to take another brush stroke of olive and then it's done

Okay, cool. Now all you have to do is put this into the pan and I started the oven at around 350 degrees

and yeah, this will have to bake for around an hour. I'm just going to mix that in a bit better

This will have to bake for around one hour, guys. You will know when it is done as usual if you just stick a toothpick in it or a knife

if you don't have a toothpick, make sure it comes out clean

And you know what? Your house is going to smell so good. It's going to smell amazing. It's going to feel like it's ready at like 40 seconds potentially, not 40 seconds, sorry

40 minutes potentially and you're going to be like, oh my God, this is ready and I want to have it right now

And it may look done from the top, it may look browned, but nope, you don't want to

open it because the zucchini and banana makes it a little bit more wet so you definitely

do want to wait for the full one hour mark and not get too eager because it's just going

to be a bit of a gooey mess inside and we don't like gooey messes

So okay, there we go. Smoothed it down and that is it

And now I'm going to put this away in the oven and of course because this is TV, I have

already baked another bread and I'm just going to bring that out and show you what

the final product looks like. But in the meantime, we have a question. I see you Marianne

What's up? Tina wants to know, can the banana be substituted with applesauce

I believe it can. I'm not 100% sure. I can check back on that honestly and get back to you

I think in terms of the sweetness profile, yes, but the banana may have a little bit

more fiber in it so you may have to add in another sort of like bulking kind of agent

to balance it out. But I can look into that and get back to you. Awesome

Okay, I will bring out the finished product then, what we have in the meantime

So this is what I made last night and tried very hard not to eat because it smelled amazing

And what we're going to do now is just sort of bite into it and see and pass it around

over here. So I hope I cut this properly. Okay. Ah, look at that

I don't know if you can get a close up on this but that's the consistency

It's banana bread consistency. It's super chewy. It's dense. A little bit of green in there which definitely tells you you're eating something super healthy

and we can do something like this. We can spread on a little bit of almond butter, let's say on this

So this would make an amazing just 3 p.m., 4 p.m. snack, breakfast in the morning if

you're not super hungry. Yeah, so I'm going to have a little bite of this right now

That is very good. And I should have thought about how sticky almond butter is on your teeth when you're

on live TV but that's okay. So this is really, really good

Thank you so, so much for tuning in guys and we will catch you next week

Are there any other questions in the meantime as I do this? Okay

Thank you so, so much guys. We'll be back here live next week at 10 a.m. Bye