Apple Zucchini Bread with Brown Sugar Frosting

Frosted Apple Zucchini Bread — 🍏😋Super soft, moist, and topped with the BEST frosting ever!!  One bowl, no mixer, EASY recipe for the best apple zucchini bread that everyone LOVES!!

If you know someone who “doesn’t like zucchini,” they’ll still love this bread.

The zucchini does help the bread stay so incredibly moist, tender, and it just melts in your mouth. Between the oil, sour cream, and natural moisture from the zucchini and green apple, it’s impossible to have a dry loaf.

I think the green apple flavor shines through and you really can’t even taste the zucchini, especially because the brown sugar frosting is so scrumptious. That is really for me what dominates the total flavor profile.

Truthfully, the boiled brown sugar frosting is the best part of the recipe in my opinion. And while the bread is still amazing without the frosting, the frosting takes the recipe to the next level and I highly recommend adding it!

Ingredients in This Recipe

This is such a simple recipe and you’ll likely have everything in your pantry and fridge to make this recipe right now!

For the bread:

• Egg
• Vegetable or canola oil
• Sour cream or Greek yogurt
• Vanilla extract
• Granulated sugar
• Light brown sugar
• All-purpose flour
• Cinnamon
• Ground ginger
• Baking soda
• Baking powder
• Salt
• Granny Smith apple
• Zucchini

For the brown sugar frosting:

• Unsalted butter
• Brown sugar
• Milk or cream
• Vanilla extract
• Salt
• Confectioners’ Sugar

Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.

How to Make Apple Zucchini Bread

Making zucchini bread with apples is as quick and easy as making classic zucchini bread. The apples add lots of flavor, but not a lot of prep time to the recipe — promise!

1. To a large bowl, simply add the egg, sugars, sour cream, vanilla, sugars, and whisk to combine them.
2. Add the flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda and powder, salt, and stir to combine. 
3. Add the grated apples, zucchini, stir to combine, and turn the mixture out into a greased 9×5-inch loaf pan.
4. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
5. Once the bread comes out of the oven, immediately prepare the brown sugar frosting. (Detailed instructions provided in the recipe card at the end of this post.)

How to Prepare the Zucchini and Apples for This Recipe

1. Grate Using a Box Grater: I use a box grater to grate the apple and zucchini by hand in literally two minutes Use the coarsest blade, and grate away. One large Granny Smith apple and one regular-sized zucchini should be sufficient.
2. Wring to Remove Excess Moisture: Place the grated apples and zucchini in doubled up paper towels, separate them, and wring it out. You don’t have to wring like you are trying to wring out a wet swimsuit, but you want to blot up some of the moisture, if I were guessing, I’d say wring out 50% of the moisture.
3. Measure: Measure out 3/4 cup of both the apples and zucchini, packed fairly firmly. Don’t hard-pack it into the measuring cup, but use more pressure than if you were just laying it in the cup.

A Note About the Bake Time

Anytime one is baking with apples, zucchini, bananas, berries, or any fruit or vegetable, the natural juices from the vegetable or fruit seep out during the baking process.

It is very important to bake your bread though, and approximately 50 minutes should do the trick, but that is not written in stone. You need to watch your apple zucchini bread and not the clock when evaluating doneness.

Do not be afraid to bake your bread for 70 minutes if that’s what it needs in order to get it cooked through.

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4.49 from 97 votes

Apple Zucchini Bread with Brown Sugar Frosting

By Averie Sunshine

🍏😋Super soft, moist, and topped with the BEST frosting ever!!  One bowl, no mixer, EASY recipe for the best apple zucchini bread that everyone LOVES!!

Prep Time: 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 50 minutes minutes

Cooling Time: 45 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 50 minutes minutes

Servings: 10

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Ingredients  

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Bread

• ▢ 1 large egg
• ▢ ½ cup vegetable or canola oil
• ▢ ½ cup sour cream or Greek yogurt, I used full fat sour cream
• ▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ▢ ½ cup granulated sugar
• ▢ ½ cup light brown sugar, packed
• ▢ 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• ▢ 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ▢ 1 teaspoon ground ginger, or to taste
• ▢ ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ▢ ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon salt, or to taste
• ▢ ¾ cup freshly grated Granny Smith apple, peeled first, blotted, and fairly firmly packed in measuring cup (see Notes)
• ▢ ¾ cup freshly grated zucchini, blotted, and fairly firmly packed in measuring cup (see Notes)

Frosting

• ▢ ¼ cup unsalted butter
• ▢ ½ cup light brown sugar, packed
• ▢ 2 tablespoons milk or cream
• ▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt, or to taste
• ▢ 1 ½ to 1 ¾ cup confectioners’ sugar, if your sugar is particularly lumpy, sift before using it

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Instructions 

Bread:

• Preheat oven to 350F, and spray a 9×5-inch loaf pan with floured cooking spray, or grease and flour the pan; set aside.
• To a large mixing bowl, add the egg, oil, sour cream, vanilla, sugars, and whisk to combine.
• Add the flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and stir to combine; don’t overmix.
• Add the grated apples and zucchini and fold to combine, don’t overmix.
• Turn batter out into the prepared pan, smoothing the top lightly with a spatula, and bake the bread for about 50 minutes (start checking earlier) or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean from any raw batter. I highly recommend draping a sheet of foil, i.e. tenting the pan, at the 25 to 30-minute mark while baking to reduce excessive browning on the top and sides of your loaf. See Notes for baking tips.
• Allow the bread to cool in the pan for about 30 minutes, or until it’s cool enough to remove.

Frosting:

• To a high-sided small saucepan, add the butter and heat over medium-high heat to melt, whisking constantly until it melts.
• Add the brown sugar, milk or cream, and whisk to incorporate. The mixture should be bubbling around the perimeter of the saucepan. Allow the mixture to come to a boil so that in the center of the saucepan it’s boiling. This will only take another 30-60 seconds.
• Once it comes to a boil in the center of the saucepan, turn off the heat, add the vanilla, salt, 1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar, and whisk vigorously to incorporate the confectioners’ sugar. If you want a slightly thicker frosting, add the additional 1/4 confectioners’ sugar after you check and see how it looks after the initial 1 1/2 cups.
• Immediately pour the frosting over the bread, noting you may not need quite all of it. I discarded about 10-15%. The frosting sets up very quickly so make sure after you whisk in the confectioners’ sugar you move quickly and get it poured over the bread.
• Allow the frosting to set up fully before slicing into the bread.

Notes

1. Grating, Wringing Out, and Measuring The Apples and Zucchini  – Place the grated apples and grated zucchini (separately) in doubled up paper towels and wring it out. You don’t have to wring like you are trying to wring out a wet swimsuit, but you want to blot up some of the moisture, if I were guessing, I’d say wring out 50% of the moisture.

Then place measure out 3/4 cup of each, measuring cup fairly firmly. Don’t hard-pack it into the cup, but use more pressure than if you were just laying it in the cup. You want 1 1/2 cups total of grated, blotted, semi-packed apples and zucchini combined.

2. Baking Tips – It is very important to bake your bread though, and approximately 50 minutes should do the trick, but that is not written in stone so you need to watch your bread and not the clock when evaluating doneness. Do not be afraid to bake your bread for 70 minutes if that’s what it needs in order to get it cooked through.

Because of the moisture content of your particular zucchini, exactly how much water you blotted out, your oven, you climate, the brand of flour used, and so forth, will all effect baking times. The bread is done when a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out free from any wet batter.

I recommend draping a sheet of foil, i.e. tenting your pan, at the 25 to 30-minute mark to avoid excessive browning on the top and sides of your loaf.

3. Storage – Bread will keep airtight at room temp for up to 5 days, in the fridge for up to 8 days, and in the freezer for up to 4 months noting that if you are planning to freeze this bread, I would frost the bread upon thawing and not before freezing it because the frosting could change textures with the freezing/thawing.

Bread adapted from The Best Zucchini Bread.

Nutrition

Serving: 1, Calories: 407kcal, Carbohydrates: 75g, Protein: 5g, Fat: 10g, Saturated Fat: 5g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 4g, Cholesterol: 42mg, Sodium: 275mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 58g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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Originally posted August 21, 2020 and reposted August 11, 2023 with updated text.