Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Chocolate Zucchini Cake


We always had a garden when I was growing up. I loved having all the fresh veggies right outside the door. We had tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, beans, peas (my fav!), onion and of course zucchini!


Despite only planting 1 or 2 plants we always ended up with an abundance of zucchini, good thing we all liked it. 

By far my most favorite zucchini recipe is my mom’s Chocolate Zucchini Cake, it is moist and chocolaty but not too sweet and it has just a hint of spice from cinnamon and cloves.


If we were really lucky she would layer a fudgy chocolate icing on top. You don’t need it but man it tastes good!

What you need,

½ cup butter, softened
½ cup vegetable oil
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
½ cup buttermilk (or sour milk)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups finely grated zucchini (about 1 medium sized one)
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
4 tbsp. cocoa
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. ground cloves
½ cup chocolate chips
Chocolate icing, optional

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Spray a 9X13 inch glass baking dish with non-stick spray and set aside.

In a large bowl cream together the butter, sugar and oil. Add in the eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition. Stir in the buttermilk, vanilla and zucchini.

I gave my grated zucchini a squeeze, just to get a little of the extra moisture out before adding it to the batter.

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, coco, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and cloves.

Add the dry ingredients into the wet and gently stir to combine.

Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle the top with the chocolate chips.

Bake for 40-45 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool completely on a wire rack.

Slather with chocolate icing if you want, I didn’t this time, It feels more like health food if you skip it!


There you have it the perfect way to use up all your zucchini.

Always reminds me of summers at home!

Jen

Recipe from my Mom, not sure where it came from, I just remember the little recipe card with her writing on it.

5 comments:

  1. Bahaha you mean pineapple zucchini wasn't your favorite!! This looks good, I do remember liking this lots!!

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  2. I love chocolate zucchini cake! I'm still trying to convince my husband that it's good :)

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  3. Jen this looks amazing! Zucchini population control

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  4. Omgosh I totally remember having this at your house when we were little!! Soooo good!

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  5. My mom used to make this too and I always loved it. The zucchini just makes the cake so moist. You'd never know that there was a healthy veggie in there!

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