Lemon Zucchini Bread is the perfect twist on traditional zucchini bread with a light citrus taste throughout and topped with a sweet lemon glaze!
Lemon zucchini bread is a delicious sweet bread you will want to make all summer long! Instead of traditional zucchini bread you’ll love the light and refreshing lemon taste this bread has!
This lemon zucchini bread is so moist throughout the cake. Zucchini bread is known for being moist, thanks to the zucchini. You do not want to squeeze or dry the shredded zucchini, because you want to keep all that moisture in there to keep the sweet bread moist. Also because we use canola oil instead of butter that keeps the bread moist.
The sweet tangy lemon glaze on top ties it all together. Its made with powdered sugar, fresh lemon juice and half and half. That makes it lemony, and a little bit creamy and so so good.
How is your garden growing? My garden is doing alright this year, I have tomatoes, herbs, peppers, cucumbers, eggplant (its my first time — I love the little purple flower), and zucchini. I always plant zucchini, then I feel like my garden is a success because zucchini always grows well, really, really well.
I have to watch the zucchini daily because there will be a little tiny zucchini one day and the next there is this gigantic zucchini – it grows so fast I have no idea how! Zucchini likes to hide too, they hide under the leaves and under the stems; maybe they don’t like to be picked. If you happen to plant zucchini like I do and the plant has gotten a little carried away, making and baking zucchini bread is a prefect use of that over sized zucchini. The other awesome thing about zucchini bread is there are so many options, regular zucchini bread, double chocolate zucchini bread and now lemon zucchini bread. Enjoy your choices. And if you need something savory to make with your zucchini, then you’ll also love this zucchini lasagna or parmesan zucchini spears if you need something savory!
This recipe can be made with green zucchini or yellow squash!
Lemon Zucchini Bread
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup canola oil
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 2 TBS lemon juice
- zest 1 lemon
- 1 cup zucchini (grated)
For the Lemon Glaze:
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- juice 1 lemon
- 1 to 2 TBSP half and half (as needed to thin glaze)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Flour and grease 1 9x5 loaf pan
- In a large bowl, blend together flour, baking powder and salt
- In another bowl, beat 2 eggs well
- Add to the eggs the oil and sugar and blend together well
- Add the buttermilk, lemon juice, and lemon zest and blend together well
- Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and fold together until everything is well blended, but don't over-mix
- Fold the zucchini into the prepared batter until evenly throughout.
- Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan, pat down the pan with a couple of soft thumps to your counter top to evenly distribute the batter.
- Place in your oven and bake for 40 to 45 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. (Check at 35 minutes to make sure you don't over bake)
- Cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then remove to a wire cooling rack to finish cooling
For the Glaze:
- In a bowl, mix the powdered sugar, 1 TBS lemon juice, and 1 TBS half and half.
- Mix together with a fork until all the sugar is thoroughly mixed and glaze is thin enough to spread, but not too runny.
- Add more half and half, or lemon juice as needed to thin the glaze. Or add a little more powdered sugar as needed to thicken.
- Drizzle the glaze over the cooled loaf. (I like to drizzle with my cake on a cooling rack with foil or a cookie sheet underneath. This way the glaze won't gather on the sides, and will drip off without getting all over the place)
- Let set, then slice and serve
Recipe originally published on August 4, 2014. Photos updated on July 2, 2018.
What is your favorite type of zucchini bread?
GET READY TO MAKE THIS SWEET BREAD WITH THESE KITCHEN TOOLS:
You might also like these other zucchini recipes:
Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread
Janice says
Saw your recipe on Pinterest going to try it today.
Would like to know if I can use vegetable oil or even unsweetened apple sauce to replace canola oil?
This looks so good!
Thank you
Aimee says
Vegetable oil should work interchangably with canola oil, anytime 🙂 I haven’t tried it with apple sauce though, I’d recommend cutting the oil in half and subbing applesauce for the other half, but not completely replacing the oil with applesauce. Let me know if you try it!