First: look what I bought! No more minced fingers for me.
Before I get into the recipe, let me take a moment to hang my head and admit it: I am a pretty horrible baker. With baking, you really have to follow the instructions exactly, and I’m more of a pinch-of-this dash-of-that kind of cook; I never actually believe that they’re serious when they say that you have to use measuring devices. Which is why my baking efforts are more often than not fairly disastrous.
I approached yesterday’s chocolate zucchini cake with my standard ill-advised mindset (meh, I don’t have a bundt pan, I’ll just use two square pans and adjust the baking time; meh, I only have 1 1/2 cups of regular sugar, let’s just top it off with some superfine)…but, miracle of miracles, it turned out wonderfully. If you make this cake, I would suggest using a bundt pan just because it ends up looking prettier, and if you have some food coloring around, consider dyeing the icing the palest shade of pink; so pretty against the dark chocolate cake.
CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI CAKE
Why zucchini, you ask? Because it lends an unbelievable moistness to the cake. Try it – you’ll see.
What you need:
2 cups flour
2 cups white sugar
3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
3 cups grated (careful!) zucchini
What you do:
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour a large bundt pan (if you use two square pans, as I did, reduce baking time by about half).
2. In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.
3. Add eggs and oil; mix well.
4. Gently fold in zucchini, and then pour into pan.
5. Bake approximately one hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean.
6. Let cool completely before frosting.
CREAM CHEESE ICING
Oh my god, did I ever make a disaster out of this. Basically, the moment that I inserted the electric mixer into the butter and cream cheese, one of those sproingy things came sproinging off, absolutely coating my entire kitchen (including myself and Virgil) in glop. I of course responded by screaming and yanking the mixer out of the bowl so quickly that the cord went whipping sideways, overturning the measuring cup full of powdered sugar and sending a big white puff into the air.
See? So: don’t do that. Do this.
What you need:
4 oz cream cheese
4 oz butter
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
What you do:
1. Using a functional electric mixer, beat together butter and cream cheese until nicely blended.
2. Slowly add confectioner’s sugar (if you add too much at a time it’ll billow back up at you in aforementioned white puff), and then mix in vanilla.
3. Add a touch of food coloring, if desired (I didn’t have any sitting around, but I recommend pale pink).
Ta da!
You can also make chocolate zucchini cupcakes using this recipe, as reader Katie did.
