Zucchini Double Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

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Yesterday I made a cake from one of the larger zucchini harvested from our garden. I really enjoy zucchini bread but I felt like making something chocolate. The orange juice and zest in the cream cheese frosting is a nice note against the chocolate -I think. You won’t even know the zucchini is in the cake once it’s baked- it just makes a nice, dark, moist cake.

Zucchini Double Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

  • 1/2 cup canola oil
  • 4 ounces of melted Guittard Oban chocolate (or other good quality unsweetened chocolate)
  • 1/4 pound of butter, softened
  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • 3 eggs, room temperature
  • 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups all purpose unbleached flour
  • 1/3 cup cocoa ( I prefer Valrhona but any good quality is fine)
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup buttermilk
  • 3 packed cups of coarsely grated zucchini, wash first and grate without peeling)
  • 1 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped

Mix the oil and melted chocolate and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar, add the eggs and vanilla and beat well. Mix in the oil/melted chocolate. Mix the flour, cocoa, soda, baking powder and salt together in a small bowl and using a whisk mix them all well so no cocoa lumps remain. Add the buttermilk and mix to smooth then stir in the zucchini and nuts. Spread in a 9 x 13 baking pan that has been greased and lined with parchment paper. Smooth the top and bake in preheated 350F oven for about 45 minutes or until a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack. Then frost- either the whole cake or individual pieces- but once frosted it must be refrigerated due to the cream cheese in the frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting with Orange

  • 8 ounces cream cheese
  • 1/3 cup softened butter
  • 1 pound confectioner’s sugar
  • zest from one whole orange, finely grated
  • juice from 1/2 orange or just enough to get the texture you like
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle or in a bowl with a hand-mixer, cream the cream cheese and butter together and add the powdered sugar in a steady stream while your mixer runs. Add the zest, orange juice and vanilla extract and beat well. Use to frost or refrigerate until ready to use.

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Enjoy!

Zucchini Madness

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Every Spring I forget about zucchini-I look at the tiny innocent looking plants that my Mum gives me or that I plant in a peat pot or that I purchase at the nursery and I think- I’ll plant two -they’re small- what if one dies? But I forget that they are hardy to the point of madness and that once producing they never relent. I think we could solve world hunger at least in the Summer with just a few plants 😉  Zucchini are the stuff of urban gardening legend in my town.  A few weeks into the season neighbors start looking like deer caught in the headlights if they see you headed towards them with yet more zucchini. There are doorbell ditches and boxes of marrows left on break-room tables at work with signs saying “free- PLEASE take me home!”

Please don’t misunderstand- I love zucchini- it’s just that after a while I feel like I’m stuck in that Monty Python sketch- Lupine stew, just insert zucchini for the “bloody lupines”.  So right now I have a Chocolate Zucchini Cake in the oven- hopefully I’ll share that tomorrow- and we’ve had zucchini 89,000,000 ways and there are still four zucchini waiting on my counter to be dealt with  enjoyed.

So for tonight, it’s a grated fresh zucchini salad:

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Zucchini Salad

  • 2 cups of coarsely grated fresh zucchini skin on but washed well before grating
  • 3 Tablespoons Port Balsamic vinegar
  • 4 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 clove minced garlic
  • salt
  • freshly ground pepper
  • chopped fresh tomato
  • one purple shallot, slivered
  • 1 cup cubed Feta cheese
  • 1/3 cup pine nuts

Just mix it all together and let it sit for the flavors to mingle and develop.

Hope you enjoy!

xo

Pass the Mustard!

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Have you ever made homemade mustard? Oh it’s so easy and so good and you can put just the flavors you like in it.

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Mustard -basic recipe

  • 4 Tablespoons yellow mustard powder- commercial or make your own just make sure it’s pulverized well and sift it if you do
    (add a Tablespoon of flour if you make your own powdered mustard)
  • 1 cup boiling water
  • 3/4 cup yellow mustard seeds, ground coarsely in a mortar or spice grinder
  • 1/4 cup brown mustard seeds, ground coarsely in a mortar or spice grinder
  • 1/4 cup white wine vinegar or other you like (I used champagne vinegar in this batch)
  • 1/4 cup other liquid= beer, orange juice etc. (I used hard cider in this batch)
  • add-ins such as herbs, honey (I added 2 Tablespoons of my peach jam to this one)
  • 1/2  to 1 teaspoon salt

Pour the boiling water over the powder, ground seeds and salt. Let sit until absorbed a bit and add the other ingredients. Let this all sit for a couple of hours at room temperature until the liquid is absorbed. Stir, taste and adjust for any seasoning or flavor. Store in the fridge. This one is particularly good on ham- I think.

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Hope you enjoy!

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