...if you have a backyard and a kitchen, this blog might be for you!

a chronicle of tips and recipes on everything from gardening to canning and baking your produce, even if you're planted in suburbia...in fact, especially if you are planted in suburbia.



Monday, June 20, 2011

That's a Vegetable?

Sure, the basket with tomatoes and onions in the background, that's what we mean by vegetable--but surely not the thing that looks like chocolate cake? Actually, to be botanically correct, I should call it a fruit. But whatever it is, it isn't regular chocolate cake, that's certain.

It's zucchini chocolate cake.

What better way to commemorate the first zucchini harvest of the season than to make a great dessert with it, I always say. While it's a scratch recipe, it's not too complicated to make (no sifting or clarifying or other action-verb directions obscure to the box-cake aficionado.) Nevertheless, it gives you the aura of a kitchen folklore wizard. I adapted the recipe from one I found in a cookbook exclusively dedicated to zucchini recipes, and the frosting simply came from the back of a cocoa tin. Enjoy!

Chocolate Zucchini Cake
1 C whole wheat flour
1 C all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup cocoa
3 eggs
2 C sugar
1/2 C oil
3/4 C milk
1 1/2 C shredded zucchini
1/2 C applesauce
1 tsp vanilla

Stir together first 8 ingredients, and set aside. In a large bowl, beat eggs until light. Gradually beat in sugar until mixture is fluffy. Slowly beat in oil. Stir in flour mixture, milk and zucchini-applesauce mix one third at a time alternating each. Add vanilla and blend lightly but thoroughly. Put in greased 9 x 13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Chocolate Frosting
Mix 1/2 C softened butter with 1/3 C milk and 2/3 C unsweetened cocoa. Add 3 C powdered sugar and 1 tsp vanilla. Mix until well blended. Frost cooled cake.

Happy baking!

3 comments:

  1. That cake looks yummy. And someone else posted zucchini patties. You can just make anything with zucchini, can't you?

    Cindy Bee

    ReplyDelete
  2. THe cake was delicious! My teenage son's girlfriend even commented it was now her favorite type of cake. Score one for Mom!

    ReplyDelete