Let’s rewind to a housewarming party earlier this summer. Late that night, a girl walked in with a warm-from-the-oven zucchini cake covered in cream cheese icing. She set it down on the counter along with some forks and tipsy partygoers, myself included, eagerly dug in.
Upon first bite, I declared it the best cake I’d ever had. It didn’t even taste like zucchini—it was just the most moist, delectable spiced cake I had ever tasted. After the second bite, I pronounced that I would henceforth define my life in terms of the pre-zucchini cake era and post-zucchini cake era. It was an enlightening experience, friends.
Fast forward to last week, when I was contending with a serious chocolate craving. I tried to satisfy it with a small piece of dark chocolate, which usually does the trick. When that failed, I ate a chocolate chip cookie. That didn’t cut it, either. I nibbled on chocolate this and chocolate that, but my craving was fueled by deadline stress and only a seriously decadent, rich chocolate treat would do. Enter zucchini brownies.
I found a zucchini brownie recipe that called for honey instead of sugar and whole wheat pastry flour instead of all purpose. I took it as an opportunity to bake with some new ingredients in my pantry, substituting some whole spelt flour for the pastry flour and coconut oil for the vegetable oil.
I was slightly concerned that the combination of zucchini, honey, coconut, chocolate and cinnamon flavors would overwhelm the taste buds, but they melded together perfectly.
Once I had mixed together the healthiest brownie batter around, I dumped in an entire bag of dark chocolate chips.
Chocolate craving: satisfied.
- 2 cups zucchini, grated
- 1/2 cup virgin coconut oil
- 1/2 cup honey
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
- 3/4 cup whole spelt flour (or an additional 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour)
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 1/2 cups (12 ounces) semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips (I used a bag of Ghirardelli 60% Cocoa Chips)
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8 inch square baking pan.
- Grate zucchini. Dump into a mesh colander and squeeze it with a towel to get rid of excess moisture. Fluff it back up with a fork.
- In a large bowl, beat together the wet ingredients (oil, eggs, honey and vanilla). Stir in the zucchini.
- In a separate, smaller bowl, stir together the dry ingredients (whole wheat pastry and spelt flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder and cinnamon).
- Pour the dry mixture into the wet/zucchini mixture. Stir just until combined, and then stir in the chocolate chips.
- Pour the batter into your prepared pan.
- Bake 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (mine was done baking at 30 minutes). Let cool completely.
- Adapted from A Dash of Sash.
- I have tried making these brownies with agave nectar instead of honey, but they tasted bittersweet. Honey is best.
- My friends raved over these brownies when they were fresh from the oven. I preferred them at room temperature or chilled, so the chocolate is not gooey but a rich, dense contrast to the super moist crumb. Either way, you’ll love them!
P.s. Upon closer inspection, I realized that this is the same brownie recipe that Kelsey from Happyolks adapted for her blackberry zucchini brownies. Her recipe goes to show that you can substitute fresh fruit for the chocolate chips if you’re not craving such an intensely chocolately treat.

























34 Comments
Woah. Chocolate and vegetable cravings cured! :-) These look incredible Kate!!!
I could totally eat these and still feel good about my sweet tooth self. Dark chocolate zucchini brownies—yes, please!
Sounds amazing! Can’t wait to try:))
Would it hurt the taste a lot if I added some other oil instead of the coconut oil you suggested? Do you have any suggestions maybe? Unfortunately I don’t know where they sell such things..
Love your blog – in case it wasn’t obvious already;)
The original recipe called for olive oil, but I would probably go with vegetable oil for its neutral flavor. I’ve found coconut oil at health/gourmet stores, but it can be a little pricey. So happy to hear that you love my blog, Zazzie!
:) Thank you
If these taste as half as good as they look…im hooked. :) Lovely!
Great minds think alike. We know a good recipe when we see it! The Blackberries give it more of a fudge like texture, I must admit. The chocolate chips keep the brownie authentic :)
I am so into this!
I really want to make these right now. They sound delicious, and the pictures are great!
Yum! These look fabulous, friend! How creative!!
This looks so yummy!
http://www.sandra-thepuzzleofmylife.blogspot.com
Devine! Love this idea :)
These pictures are just. not. fair. These look amazing! And you’d never know they have zucchini in them from looking at ‘em! Yum.
Those brownies look so good! I’ve been eating a ton of zucchini lately but keep forgetting to save some for baked goods and this one looks like a keeper. I LOVE your mint green spatula!
Thanks! I hope you can make zucchini brownies before zucchini season ends. Couldn’t resist that green spatula when I saw it at T.J. Maxx. :)
Looks great Kate! I have seen so many zucchini brownie recipes that I really want to try it! Yours looks very healthy and delicious!
off to the store to get chips to make these STAT!
Ok, these look fantastic! Beautiful photography also!
Finally made these this weekend. They have been calling me. So delicious and your recipes are so easy to adapt to gluten-free.
I’m so glad to hear that! Is it because they’re made with whole wheat?
Hey! I ended up making these and putting them on my just-started-up blog! Linked back to here, of course. LOVED them. Thank you!
I live in Italy, and made these for a dinner party… They ate the whole pan! The Italians were shocked by who healthy they were (once I told them the ingredients). They were so tasty! thanks!!!
I’ve made a zucchini brownie recipe very similar to this before, but it calls for baking soda instead of baking powder. Does the baking powder make them more cake-like?
That’s a great question, Ashton. I am really not sure. I’ll try it with baking soda instead next time, because I think I would prefer for the brownies to be a little less cake-y. I’m hoping that chopping the chocolate rather than using whole chocolate chips help make them more uniformly fudgy, too.
Kate! These were delicious!! Thanks for the recipe!
Glad you enjoyed the brownies, Sara! I’ve been meaning to make another batch with finely chopped chocolate instead of chocolate chips. We’ll see!
My attempt to google to find a recipe with chocolate, zucchini, and a liquid sweetener led me to this recipe, and I’m so glad it did! I used your recipe as a spring board for a vegan zucchini brownie and it worked out great (and then I blogged about it :P)! Thanks for sharing!
Awesome, I’m glad the recipe worked well for you!
Hi Kate, I can’t wait to make these tonight! Do you think adding some walnuts would mess with flavors at all? I love nutty brownies and since walnuts are mild in flavor I thought the additoon of them would add a nice crunch. What do you think?
Hi Bonnie, I think that adding walnuts is a great idea! You might also chop up the chocolate chips some so they melt into the brownies a little more uniformly. Please let me know how they turn out.
Hi Kate, so the walnuts were a success and I made my hubby a believer of zucchini brownies! I tried chopping the choc chips and used 1/2 tsp baking soda and they came out moist and oh so gooey! My batter did end up being a little thick so I added a splash of milk and a little more coconut oil.
Thanks for getting back to me, Bonnie! I’m happy to hear that the brownies turned out well. I’m definitely going to chop up the chocolate next time.
Hi Kate,the brownies look awesome and the most important it is healthy. I can’t wait to try this wholewheat zucchini brownie tonight . I will let you know how it turns out.
I’m excited to try these but I don’t have enough honey on hand for the recipe. Any suggestions for how much turbinado and/or brown sugar to use as a substitute?
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