Zucchini season is in full swing and I am trying to make as many different recipes as I can to learn how to get the most out of harvests. These White Chocolate and Raspberry Zucchini Brownies are my new favourite sweet treats!! You can’t even taste the Zucchini.
My sister-in-law sent me a bunch of Caramilk blocks and I have been saving them in the freezer. I decided to use some to test out a batch of white chocolate brownies using my Golden Zucchini. WOW. They turned out way better than I could ever have imagined! Even have a slight banana bread vibe to them. I did try to film the recipe but my memory card ran out halfway through which was a total fail! I will get there!
Anyway, these are super easy and definitely a sweet treat! The raspberry is perfect to help balance out the sweetness.
White Chocolate and Raspberry Zucchini Brownies
Ingredients:
2 cups grated Zucchini – mine worked out about 2 medium-sized Zucchini
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup raw sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups organic plain flour
3/4 cup raspberries
1 block/180g White Chocolate (replace with which ever chocolate you like)
1 teaspoon salt
Method
Preheat oven to bake at 180degrees Celcius. Grease baking pan (roughly 28cm x20cm).
In a bowl mix sugar, flour and oil until combined.
Grate Zucchini and add to the bowl along with baking soda and vanilla extract.
Sprinkle salt over and stir until it becomes a moist batter. The mix will start off quite dry but keep mixing and the Zucchini will release its moisture to form a batter.
Once it has started to become a sticky batter. Chop up your chocolate into small chunks and mix through the batter.
Add half the raspberries and stir through gently.
Pour the mix into the greased pan and press in the remaining Raspberries.
Bake for 20-30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
Cool on a wire rack. Cut into squares and enjoy!
Try quizzing your friends to see if they can pick the core ingredient.
Enjoy!
Holly 🌱
MY GARDENING ESSENTIALS // Fertiliser spray gun: https://bit.ly/366nL1t Retractable Hose: https://bit.ly/2TSC0Bo More gardening tools: https://bit.ly/32IQmbD
DISCLAIMER: Links included in this description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you! Thank you for supporting my page so I can continue to provide you with free content!
Planting Flowers for the Bees is high on my current list of gardening goals. Bees are such an important element in the garden and it wasn’t until I really started trying to grow my own food that I realised just how important they are! Previously, although, I knew they were important for pollination, I had mixed feelings towards bees because my dad is deadly allergic. One Bee sting will quickly send him into anaphylactic shock and growing up this was such a scary reality. Today, I continue to learn more and more about bees and I am amazed at how incredible they really are.
Trying to grow food without pollinators can be hard and sometimes impossible without intervention. If you have ever tried growing pumpkin or watermelon you will understand what I mean! It is so important that we try and look out for our bee friends and provide them with healthy, organic, pesticide-free gardens. I am constantly planting flowers for the bees and also letting things go to seed, so there is always an abundance of flowers and bees in my garden.
Having water available for the bees is also another great idea, especially in Perth’s warm climate. If you have a bird bath you can place a flat rock in it so that the bees can stop by for a drink. Below are some of the plants that I grow and the Bees love!
Top 5 Flowers for the Bees
1. Rosemary – This is my number one plant for the bees. There is always a hive of activity on my rosemary plant and I love seeing so many bees in my garden. Of course, it is a staple in the kitchen as well!
2. Borage – Bees love borage flowers and they are so pretty and edible too! They are usually blue, pink or white but often you get this fantastic tie-dye effect!
3. Lavender – is such a great fragrant addition to the garden and you can make natural perfumes, beauty products and it is also edible! Lavender is so easy to grow from cuttings so you can just cut off a stalk and plant it in other areas of your garden or pot up and give as a gift to your family and friends.
4. Sunflowers – These have to be one of my favourite flowers! The bees love them and they are an absolute show stopper in the garden. Sunflowers are also known to be soil remediators and extract any toxins in the soil.
5. Zinnia – I am new to growing zinnia but I absolutely love them! They come in so many amazing colours (even green!) and the flowers are also edible! These are now a much-loved staple in my garden. I even grew them down the side of a fence with very poor soil and they thrived.
Bonus – The other thing I do let some of my veggies go to seed. Diversity in the garden is important and you will see different types of bees like different flowers. Radish flowers for example, always attract our native Blue Banded bees which are amazing to watch! Having a diversity of plants and insects in your garden will help create a thriving ecosystem.
Take the time to slow down and observe your garden and you will start to recognise which flowers are attracting beneficial insects. You may even find some you have never seen before! Most weekends I have my morning coffee in the garden and just spend some time observing without any distractions. We are often so busy trying to do something that we lose sight of all the little things going on.
This weekend I challenge you to give it a go! Make a coffee and spend just 10 minutes or so sitting in the garden or nature and observe. And if you can plant some more Flowers for the Bees.
Holly ✨
MY GARDENING ESSENTIALS //
Fertiliser spray gun: https://bit.ly/366nL1t
Retractable Hose: https://bit.ly/2TSC0Bo
More gardening tools: https://bit.ly/32IQmbD
DISCLAIMER: Links included in this description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you! Thank you for supporting my page so I can continue to provide you with free content!
