Too much zucchini? Make cake.

I always plant too many zucchini plants.  I can’t help myself.  Those rose coloured glasses combined with teeny tiny seedlings and the gluts of summers past become a distant blur.  So each summer I am faced with the same problem – too many zucchini.  We have eaten them in so many different ways, but every now and then you feel like you need a little chocolate in your life, so killing two birds with one stone I’ve combined the two for a delicious treat.

If this is something that may be of interest to you – this is how you do it:

HOW TO MAKE CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI CAKE

Here we have the makings of a very fine cake – you’ll need to trust me on the zucchini

Gather together all of your ingredients

​3 eggs

1 cup of vegetable oil – I used sunflower oil because that was what I had. It was fine.

2 cups of sugar – it’s a lot of sugar I know – but we are trying to hide veggies from kids at the end of the day, so let’s just focus on that bit.

1 tablespoon of vanilla essence

2 cups of peeled and grated zucchini – I forgot to peel the zucchini in my excitement to get baking and it still came out ok so maybe you don’t have to peel them if you don’t want to.

2 1/2 cups of flour

1/2 cup of baking cocoa

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon of cinnamon – I didn’t have enough cinnamon so I used mixed spice and it still tasted good.

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

I used my electric mixer to blend all the wet ingredients – so much easier than doing it by hand.

Beat all the wet ingredients together in a bowl.  That would be the eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla​.

There is something a little weird about adding a vegetable to cake – but if carrot can get away with it….

Then mix in the grated zucchini into the bowl of wet ingredients.

The dry ingredients ready and waiting to be blended into the wet stuff.

In a separate bowl mix dry ingredients together.  That would be the flour, baking cocoa, salt, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon or spice of your choice.

All the ingredients are now in the bowl

Once it has been blended together the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and mix well

The cake mixture in the tin ready for the oven

Pour into a large cake tin or 2 loaf tins and bake at 180°C for 1 hour.   You can check if it is ready by poking a skewer deep into the cake and it should come out clean.  If it comes out a bit gloopy, cook your cake for a bit longer.

Did -Dah – Chocolate Zucchini Cake!

I would suggest the bake setting, not the fan bake setting on the oven as it may or may not become a little ‘crusty.’   The Joeyosaurus came to me and asked if I had overcooked it.  But what does a ten year old kid know.  Having said that normally when the school asks for a cake for the cake stall fundraiser – I usually send back their plastic plate with $10 attached and a note saying “it’s just better this way!”

If your cake is a bit ‘crusty’ then a liberal dusting of icing sugar should hide things nicely

However I’m sure those of you who bake regularly will be able to recreate this recipe and end up with a lovely rich cake that is as moist all the way through as mine was in the middle.  And if it turns out a little ‘crusty’ like mine – just serve it with a generous scoop of ice cream.

Ice cream is the perfect accompaniment and possibly a dollop of whipped cream. You can get away with it – it’s a healthy cake with veggies in it!

I like to think of this as a fabulous success because at the end of the day I have less zucchini to worry about.   Having said that I have no idea what I’ll do with tomorrows zucchini!

Come again soon – the garden is loving the heat, but me – not so much!

Sarah the Gardener  : o )