Posted Jul 18, 2022, Updated Feb 17, 2024 These zucchini bars with cream cheese frosting are easy to make with a handful of simple ingredients. They’re a cross between a zucchini cake and a blonde brownie (zucchini brownies) in the best possible way. They’re dense and moist, richly spiced and perfectly sweet! A delicious recipe to use up garden zucchini in the summer!
Zucchini Bars: Ingredients & Substitutions
Salted butter. Unsalted butter, coconut oil and ghee are good substitutions for salted butter. Sour cream. full-fat sour cream is the best for the richest taste and texture. You can use light sour cream or Greek yogurt. Granulated sugar. white granulated sugar or organic cane sugar are the best choices. All-purpose flour. You can substitute up to half of the all purpose flour with white whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour. Zucchini. this recipe uses one medium/small zucchini, which comes out to be about 1 cup after being shredded. If you shred and freeze zucchini in the summer to use all year long, let the zucchini thaw in a strainer in the sink until it’s room temperature. Squeeze out a little bit of the excess water and use in the recipe.
How to Make Zucchini Bars
This recipe is very easy to make, we’ll walk through how to make zucchini bars step-by-step, and don’t forget to watch the video. Begin by combining flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon in a medium-sized bowl, set aside. Then, melt the butter gently, stirring until it’s smooth. Be careful not to over-head the butter. Then, whisk in the sour cream, egg, vanilla and sugar until mixture is smooth. Next, add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir until smooth. Then, gently fold in the shredded zucchini until itis evenly distributed throughout the batter. Next, spread the batter evenly in a prepared baking dish and bake in the until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bars comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. Let the bars cool completely in the pan. While the bars are cooling, make the cream cheese frosting! This frosting recipe makes enough for two batches of zucchini bars, you can cut it in half or just use half and freeze the other half for another recipe. Spread the frosting over the top of the cooled bars, then chill the zucchini bars until you are ready to serve.
Serve
Cut the zucchini bars into squares and serve. The bars can be served slightly chilled or room temperature.
Store
Store leftover zucchini bars in a single layer in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Freeze
You can either freeze individual squares or you can freeze the entire pan of bars: Entire recipe. Make the recipe, then chill it until it’s completely cooled, then cover the top tightly with plastic wrap and foil (or bake in a pan with a lid) and freeze for up to two months. Thaw in the refrigerator. Individual bars. To freeze individual bars, put them on a baking sheet and put them in the freezer until they are hardened (about 1 hour). Individually wrap each bar in plastic wrap and put them in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 2 months. Thaw in the refrigerator. If you make and love our recipes, it would mean so much to me if you would leave a comment and rating! And don’t forget to follow along with us on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Youtube – be sure to tag @joyfoodsunshine and use the hashtag #joyfoodsunshine so we can see your creations!
