Wednesday, February 23, 2011

What to eat Wednesdays - Chocolate zucchini cake


My sister-in-law recently wrote about all the ways she uses her zucchini bounty, including this moist chocolate zucchini cake recipe which took my fancy. The recipe actually comes from this blog.

I'm such a sucker for sweet treats, so I comfort myself with the thought that I'm eating vegetables at the same time with this recipe.

This cake was incredibly moist, even a couple of days later. I also gave it the freezer test and it was just as good after the freeze/unfreeze process as before it.

Ingredients
  • 125g butter, softened
  • 1c brown sugar
  • 1/2c white sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 1/2c flour
  • 1t vanilla extract
  • 1/2c plain yoghurt
  • 1/4c cocoa
  • 2t baking soda
  • 1t cinnamon
  • 1/2t mixed spice
  • 1/2t salt (I used Celtic sea salt for extra nutrients)
  • 3c grated zucchini (about three medium-large zucchinis)
  • 1/2c - 1c chocolate chips

Method
1. Preheat oven to 170°C (340°F).

2. Line 30cm round cake tin.

3. Cream butter and sugar.

4. Add eggs one at a time with a spoonful of your measured flour.

5. Add yoghurt and vanilla. Mix well.

6. Sift in dry ingredients and add zucchini.

7. Stir till just combined.

8. Pour into cake tin and smooth top.

9. Sprinkle with chocolate chips.

10. Bake for 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

11. Leave to cool in tin, then store in an airtight container.

Our thoughts on the cake
1. L and I both loved it. It was super moist and had a lovely flavour.

2. Paul doesn't like chocolate cake at the best of times, so there was no way he was going to try one with zucchini in it. 

3. Our short-term flatmate, Richard, gave it a go and said (direct quote), "It's actually not bad."

4 comments:

  1. Hi Emma,

    Just thought I'd let you know that I made this recipe yesterday, but used cucumber instead. We have had 64 cucumbers off one plant, so we're a bit sick of them! I just scooped out the seeds from the middle, then grated it up and the cake was really good. I only used a 22 cm cake tin, as 30 cm seemed really big to me! I also iced it with chocolate icing because the cucumber left it tasting very slightly bitter. All four of my kids loved it, so that has got to be good!

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  2. That is an amazing cucumber supply, Maria. What sort of cucumber plant was it? I might need to get one next summer. I'm averaging 1-2 off each of my cucumber plants, so nothing as incredible as you got.

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  3. The cucumber is a telegraph, called Early Perfection. We are up to 85 cucumbers now and there are more coming!

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  4. I can not get over that. What an amazing plant. I'll look out for it from Kings Seeds.

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