Zucchini Brownies

This time, a friend tagged me in a recipe and asked me to try it.
The recipe originated at allrecipes.com (a frequent source of our dinner ideas around here) and some of the comments were that the result of mixing all ingredients pre-zucchini led to something resembling dirt.

So, my friend was excited to tell us she'd made these delicious brownies by adding pureed baby food and that the results were perfect! (and that she skipped the frosting)

First, they asked you to grease and flour the pan. Having made a chocolate cake from scratch two years ago, I was given the most glorious tip ever: Dust the pan with your cocoa powder, not flour!

Next, mix your vegetable oil, sugar and vanilla extract

All your dry ingredients will now be mixed together to add to the "wet" mix

You will combine them all thoroughly and it will look like...Dirt.

All you are supposed to add now is zucchini.

Now to be fair, I had shredded and frozen my 2 cups zucchini which breaks it down and separates the liquid better. This made it much easier to mix than a fresh shred if you aren't catching your juices.

Still, she'd asked me to add the baby food so I did, then poured into the pan. (I did 6oz pureed pears)

Baked it for 25 min, did the toothpick test, then did the additional five (they said 25-30)

End result? Very moist, very delicious, very cake-like! If I were to call this "super-moist zucchini cake" then you would expect my results.
When it comes to brownies, my personal preference is dense, chewy, fudge-like brownies vs fluffy cake-like brownies. Thankfully my husband shares this preference.
I also prefer using butter to cooking oil.
Still, the recipe was not too dry and was tasty and you'll never know it has two full cups of shredded zucchini. (We all get tired of standard zucchini bread after a while)

When I saw her today she recommended a shorter baking time so it wouldn't rise as much. I would probably decrease the pears to 4oz...and perhaps do applesauce instead? Maybe less baking soda?
This might be my new chocolate cake recipe with a little tweaking-the cake was really crumbly but delicious. It would make an excellent base for dark chocolate cake pops! Cook, form into balls, then dip in your favorite chocolate and let them harden! Mmm!

~Tammy