Awesome Lemon Poppy-Seed Zucchini Bread

I had never been a huge fan of zucchini bread until recently. My friend made a batch of chocolate zucchini bread and shared some with me, and it totally won me over. After that, I went on the hunt for a recipe to try myself. I stumbled upon Laura's recipe from Real Mom Kitchen for lemon poppy-seed zucchini bread; it sounded delicious, so I gave it a try. I actually used RMK's recipe as a base and altered it a little, but it was no less delicious.  

Here's my version, with a huge nod to Laura at RMK, of course!


Lemon Poppy-Seed Zucchini Bread
4 cups flour 1 1/2 cups sugar (I did half sugar, half Splenda) 1 package sugar-free vanilla pudding mix 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon baking powder sprinkle of salt 2 eggs 3/4 cup plain nonfat Greek yogurt* 1 cup milk** 1/2 cup vegetable oil Juice of 1 lemon 1 teaspoon lemon extract zest of 1 lemon 1 medium-to-large zucchini, grated Poppy seeds as desired 
*The original recipe calls for 4 eggs, but you can substitute 1/4 cup of Greek yogurt per egg, so I did half and half (1/2 cup yogurt = 2 eggs). The other 1/4-cup of yogurt covers the rest of the vegetable oil that I reduced from the original recipe. 
** I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk, but any kind of milk works fine. 

Combine first six ingredients (flour - salt) in a large bowl and set aside. Combine next seven ingredients (eggs - zest) in another bowl and stir. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix about halfway, until dry ingredients are moistened. Add zucchini and poppy seeds and finish stirring. Batter will be very thick. 

Pour batter into two greased 9x5x3-inch loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-55 minutes. I've found that 52 minutes is the perfect time. Cool bread in the pans completely before removing them.

Happy baking!