So I Baked: Big Whoop, Wanna Fight About It?

This past weekend I did something I hadn't done in ages: I baked. After almost a year living in my current utilitarian hovel, I finally managed to use the oven. And since I had a ginormous zucchini from a friend's garden, I went looking for zucchini bread recipes. Preferably with chocolate.

What I found was a recipe for MOIST Chocolate Zucchini Bread from Denver, Colorado's own Juli Bauer of PaleOMG and Crossfit Broadway fame. I did make a couple minor tweaks to her recipe (sorry Jules):

-I went with almond butter instead of sunbutter (1:1 exchange), purely because I already had an unopened jar of Justin's Nut Butter. A well-prepared baker would've bought Justin's chocolate almond butter. Next time. 

-I also dropped two scoops of Muscle Feast Whey Isolate into the batter. Anything to squeeze in a little extra protein whenever possible. And yes, I realize the high temps from baking probably denatured the protein a bit.   

SIDE NOTE: (People always seem to mention protein denaturing when you cook with protein powders like it's the end of the world, but never when you cook with meat or eggs. The main point of cooking is to denature and break down foods (not just the Precious protein powders), which in turn makes them easier to digest and more bioavailable. Do some Googling on the Tron and you'll see that cooking our meats and plants has had a tremendous impact on our evolutionary path.)

And that's it. Follow Juli's excellent recipe and you should end up with a couple loaves of an awesome cake/bread-type thing that stays really MOIST. Mine didn't rise a whole lot (I probably shorted the baking powder), so keep that in mind. I took both loaves into the office on Monday morning and they were terminated with extreme prejudice by 10am by the entire trading desk. 

(I didn't frame my pics quite as awesome as she does, but you get the idea)

(Mini-Band from Elitefts.com; supersetting band pull-aparts and grating zucchini is great rotator cuff prehab)