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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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!”

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.

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 )