Super moist and flavorful lemon poppy seed zucchini bread with cream cheese glaze makes the perfect sweet treat for using up your summer zucchini.
For all the delicious zucchini baked goods, check out my recipes for Zucchini Pancakes, Chocolate Zucchini Bread , Zucchini Cake, and Zucchini Cookies.
Why This Recipe Works
So delicious – I can’t even believe there was a time in my life when I wasn’t eating zucchini in sweet treat form. This lemon zucchini bread is absolute perfection. Perfectly sweetened with the perfect texture, and the most perfect use of the lemon poppyseed flavor combination I heart so much. In a word – perfect!
Cream cheese glaze – Sure this zucchini bread is amazing without the cream cheese glaze but it’s even MORE amazing with it. A little bit rich, a little tangy, sweet, melt-in-your mouth glaze that just is really truly the icing on the (zucchini) cake.
Uses all the zucchini – I don’t know about you, but sometimes I go overboard at the farmers market in the summers, buying all the produce because it’s in season and just so beautiful. Then, try as I might, we just don’t end up using it all. This zucchini bread recipe is the perfect thing for using up any zucchini that is at risk of going bad. Plus, you can freeze the bread (but you don’t want to freeze that zucchini).
Perfect “present” – I don’t know about you but in the summer I’m never quite sure what to bring to various cookouts and picnics, baby showers and birthday parties. Sure, I’ll bring the pasta salad, but what about a little something special just for the host? Something he or she can tuck away and not share? This zucchini bread is the best edible present around!
Here’s How You Make It
Make the bread
- Preheat your oven to 350 and then grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan. Set it aside.
- Whisk together the flour, baking powder and soda, and salt in a bowl.
- In another, larger bowl, mix together the eggs, zucchini, sugar, oil, butter, and vanilla. Then add the lemon juice, zest, and poppy seeds and stir again.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix till combined.
- Pour the batter into the loaf pan. Pop it in the oven and bake for 45-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let it cool on a wire rack.
Prepare the glaze
- While the bread is cooling off, you can make the glaze. First cream together the cream cheese, vanilla, lemon juice, and butter.
- Add the powdered sugar and mix until it’s combined.
- Add the milk now, 2 tablespoons at a time, mixing after each addition, until the glaze has reached a pourable consistency.
- Drizzle the glaze over the cooled bread. Slice, serve, and enjoy!
Expert Tips
- This recipe makes one 9×5 inch loaf, about 8-10 slices. Double for extra amounts of delicious zucchini bread. Or eat one now and freeze on for later. (Don’t ice the frozen one until you’ve thawed it.)
- This bread will keep in an airtight container at room temperature up to five days.
- Top this cake with fresh strawberries, peaches, blueberries, or raspberries and some homemade whipped cream for extra decadence!
Customizations
- One fun way I like to change up this lemon zucchini bread is to add nuts to it. Just a ¼ cup or so of slivered almonds, chopped walnuts, or even chopped pistachios go great in this recipe. Mix them in at the end before you pop it in the oven. If you don’t want that much commitment, just sprinkle some nuts on the top of the glaze.
- Make a Bundt cake! Pour the batter into a prepared Bundt pan instead of a loaf pan. Bake at 325 for about 45 minutes. (Depending on the size of your Bundt pan, you might want to double the recipe.)
- Skip the poppyseeds if you don’t like them. Instead substitute nuts, or even dried fruit, or just enjoy the lemon zucchini bread without anything extra.
- For a little more citrus taste, consider adding in some orange zest or a teaspoon of orange extract.
- Make muffins by pouring the batter into prepared muffin tins or muffin liners. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.
More Zucchini Recipes
- Stuffed Zucchini Boats
- Lasagna Stuffed Zucchini Boats
- Balsamic Chicken and Veggie Skewers
- Triple Chocolate Zucchini Bread
Did you try this Lemon Poppy Seed Zucchini Bread recipe? YAY! Please rate the recipe below!
Lemon Poppy Seed Zucchini Bread
Ingredients
- 2 ¼ cups flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 ½ cups shredded zucchini
- 3 large eggs
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- ½ cup oil
- ¼ cup butter - melted
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 ½ teaspoons lemon zest
- 2 tablespoons poppyseeds
Glaze
- 1 ounce cream cheese - softened
- 2 tablespoons butter - melted
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 6 tablespoons milk - as needed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan and set aside.
- In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- In a large bowl combine zucchini, eggs, sugar, oil, melted butter, and vanilla and mix well. Stir in lemon juice, lemon zest, and poppyseeds.
- Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. Bake for 45-60 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out clean ( a few crumbs are okay but no wet batter). Allow too cool on a wire cooling rack.
- While bread is cooling, prepare the glaze by creaming together cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and lemon juice. Add powdered sugar and mix til combined. Add milk 2 tablespoons at a time, mixing after each addition, until glaze is a pourable consistency.
- Drizzle glaze over bread. Slice and serve or store in airtight container up to 5 days.
This recipe is a Good use for a Lot of zucchini, but i think it could use some tweaking…it wasn’t VeRy lemony tasting and still stuck in pan and broke some on way out even with generous oiling…maybe needs greasing and Flouring? And there is way too much glaze and it barely taStes of lemon either. I added “just lemon” packets to give it more ziNg.
Delicious bread. Dense. Moist. I would add more lemon zest to get more lemon flavor. And cut the icing recipe in half, way too much for one loaf. However, now I have the icing ready to go for my next batch, which I’ll make in 2 smaller loaf pans.
Thanks for your feedback, Renee!
I just made this and there are a couple of things i would like To add. First, i would had half again more salt. Also, the cake and frosting could use a lot more lemon. I added more in both, including adding zest to the frosting and it was still not enough. And i’m sure this was my fault, but i thought the frosting was going to be a glaze which needed to go on a hot cake as the recipe did not state to wait for it to cool, so i put it on the cake while it was still warm and it dripped off the sides of the cake too much. Also regarding the frosting, 2 cups of powdered sugar was more than sufficient. I probaBly could have gotten by with 1.5 cups. Finally, i added no milk to the frosting, choosing to add only lemon juice for the liquid. I would defInitely recommend doing that and include a tablespoon of lemon zest To the frosting as well. OTherwise, the loaf was perfectly moist and well balanced. I used the release type aluminum foil to line the pan so it was super easy to remove. Mine tooK about 75 or 80 minutes to fully bake.
Interesting input. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Instead of making a loaf i dOubled the recipe and made muffins and instead of icing i made a crumb topping they are Delicious and they freeZE so well
Thanks forthe great recipe
Sounds delish!
This was so good!! Thanks so much for the recipe! I’m saving this one and definitely will be making this again! P.s. I cook a lot and it’s not very often I am as pleased as this one. And I’m a good cook and all, it’s just that I have high standards. This bread was perfect and lived up to all my high standards lol thanks Tiffany <3