Post edited 6:40 am – October 5, 2009 by kathleenmatthews

If your garden is still yielding delicious Zucchini, here is my favourite Chocolate Zucchini Cake Recipe (evolved over the years from the 1981 Harrowsmith Cookbook) :

Grate 2 cups of zucchini.  (I use a hand grater).  Squeeze a large organic orange and add the juice to the grated zucchini. Grate the orange rind (using the large side of the hand grater) and mix with the zucchini.  Let this sit in a glass bowl while mixing the other ingredients.

Add the following ingedients into a large bowl and beat with mixer until smooth and glossy and even bubbly. I use an electric hand-held mixer & sometimes sift the dry ingredients together first, but when time is tight, I skip the sifting. With organic ingredients, the outcome is even more delicious.

2 1/2 cups flour (suggest using organic whole wheat pastry flour)

1/2 cup cocoa (organic cocoa is wonderful & let cocoa overflow generously)

2 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp. salt

3/4 cup melted butter (OK to substitute olive oil)

2 cups sugar (organic or brown)

2 tsp. vanilla

3 large eggs

1/2 cup of milk (usually goat milk, but sometimes yogurt, or juice)

Once all the above ingredients are well beaten up, add in the grated zucchini mixture and mix some more, usually by hand.  Oh yes, then add a cup, or so, of chocolate chips & mix these in by hand. Spoon batter into muffin cups or two buttered glass loaf pans or two round cake tins. 

Cook at 350 degrees. The loaf pans take about an hour. Muffins/cupcakes and cakes cook faster. I do my baking using the convection setting to get an even heat. Loafs/muffins/cakes are done when a wooden toothpick comes out clean. I do not add icing unless making a birthday cake, and then a chocolate butter icing (made with cocoa) is yummy.

This zucchini cake recipe freezes really well.