zucchini bread

My friend Audra made this the other day and it was the right mix of spicy and sweet. She served it with softened salted butter, and it was a great complement to the other flavors.
It is a Paula Deen recipe, and because Paula's the queen of butter, I did a double-take when I saw that she used oil in the recipe. Being a butter fascist myself when it comes to baking, I substituted unsalted butter for the oil. I also omitted the nuts and added the zest of half a lemon.

Ingredients

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (or 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour and 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled (it works just as well with 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup applesauce)
4 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup water
2 cups grated zucchini
1 teaspoon lemon juice
zest of half a lemon
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, nutmeg, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar. In a separate bowl, combine oil, eggs, water, zucchini and lemon juice. Mix wet ingredients into dry, add nuts and fold in. Bake in 2 standard loaf pans, sprayed with nonstick spray, for 1 hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Alternately, bake in 5 mini loaf pans for about 45 minutes.

Thanks to Audra N for sharing this Paula Deen recipe with me.