Chocolate Zucchini Cake

This cake was quite the surprise for me and was actually the result of me finding a giant zucchini in my vegetable garden (have you ever grown zucchini? Those things can literally double in size overnight!). Anyway, having had enough zucchini slice, zucchini salad, zucchini fritters to last me a lifetime, I thought for something different, I would incorporate zucchini in a chocolate cake. I know, this is nothing new, in fact I already have a recipe for a Carrot & Zucchini Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting on my website (you can find it here), but I hadn’t made a chocolate cake with zucchini before. Zucchini adds a wonderful tender moist crumb to the cake without the “green” taste and hey, you get to tell yourself it’s healthy (disclaimer: I was kidding, this is not a health food, it just has a decent hit of vegetable in it). So on a whim, I threw a bunch of ingredients together, including my giant zucchini (thinking all the while “omg, that’s way too much zucchini” but surprise, it worked)! Incidentally, only once my kids were chowing down on a slice of this cake and telling me how delicious it was, did I tell them it was loaded with zucchini - one of their loathed vegetables - ha!

Hope you love it!

Mel xoxo

makes 1 cake

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups plain flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarb soda

1 cup soft brown sugar

generous pinch salt

3 eggs

1/2 cup plain natural yoghurt

1/3 cup milk

1/3 cup olive oil

1 tsp vanilla paste

2 cups zucchini grated (around 1 large or 2 medium zucchinis)

1 cup dark chocolate chips

Garnish

Icing sugar

Method

Preheat oven to 170C (fan forced) and grease and line a 23cm springform cake tin with baking paper.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and bicarb into a mixing bowl. Add the sugar and salt and whisk to combine. In a jug, whisk together the eggs, yoghurt, milk, olive oil and vanilla paste. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix using a spatula until just combined. Add the zucchini and choc chips and mix until combined. Pour into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for around 70 minutes or until the middle of the cake springs bake when pressed gently.

Allow to cool for 10 minutes before releasing the sides of the tin. Cool completely and then dust with icing sugar. Serve as is, or if you’re feeling a little decadent, add some thick cream and berries.