When your garden is over-producing or when your neighbor drops gives you some large zucchini, make Chocolate Zucchini Cake as a treat for yourself and your family.
Ingredients
- 1 cup brown sugar
- ½ cup butter
- ½ cup white sugar
- ½ cup oil
- 3 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup buttermilk (milk will work)
- 2 1/2 cup flour
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp soda
- 4 tbsp cocoa
- 2 cups unpeeled, grated zucchini
Instructions
- In a very large bowl, cream together the brown sugar, butter, white sugar, and oil
- Stir in the eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk.
- Add the flour, cinnamon, soda, cocoa, and zucchini. Stir until combined.
- Grease and flour a 9x13” cake pan. Pour batter into the pan. Sprinkle ¾ cup chocolate chips on top. Bake at 325°F for 45 minutes. If the cake seems a bit too moist, turn off the oven and let cool in the oven.
- When the cake is cool cover or seal with plastic wrap. Store in a cool dry place.
Helpful Hints and Suggestions
- Zucchini is also known as courgette or cucurbita pepo.
- If you do not have zucchini, most any summer squash (squash with a soft skin as opposed to a hard skinned squash such as winter squash), will work in this recipe.
- If you do not have buttermilk, you can use regular milk but the taste will not be quite as rich and tangy.
- Chocolate Zucchini Cake is especially good served with milk, ice cream (a chocolate covered-cherry-ice cream is particularly good), or whipped cream.
- It is important that the cake be stored in a cool, dry place. If it is not stored properly, it will begin to ferment.
- If you wish to increase the nutritional value in this cake, try adding three tablespoons of ground flax.
- Another fun topping for the top of the cake is chunks of rock sugar, the sugar will melt slightly and then reharden giving the cake topping a crunchy texture.
For another recipe to use up an over-abundance of zucchini, try Zucchini Soup.
A Parting Thought on the Luxury of Dessert
Dorothy was looking with delighted absorption at the huge piece of chocolate cake that had been set before her and was already reaching for her fork...[Justine] felt a flash of repulsion at this sight of greed on automatic pilot, and then that was superceded by an odd feeling of tenderness based on her certainty that behind this maks of blind compulsion was a little girl in a state of solemn ecstasy over an extra special treat – and then she was saddened by the...certainty that food was the only kind of treat this little girl ever got.
“It’s good isn’t it?” she said.
“Very good,” replied Dorothy. “Really tasty.”
They ate in silence for a moment as Justine reflected on something a girlfriend had said once, that men bond when they drink and women bond when they eat dessert together. Mary Gaitskill
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