Foodie Friday #23 - Zucchini Chocolate Cake/bread/patties

This week's recipes (yes, there is more than one!) are perfect for anyone who, like me, has been getting hoards of zucchini from their CSA's, backyard gardens, or friends' gardens. They seem to be growing like crazy this summer and I had literally run out of things to do with the ones I was getting until . . . VOILA . . . these recipes showed up in my inbox! So sit back and enjoy this week's highly industrious . . .
This week's recipes are courtesy of Lex, aka Gus and Indy's mom. Here she goes . . .

"I recently bought a ton of zucchini for dirt cheap at the local farmers market so I went on a recipe hunt for additional ways to go through the zucchini before it went bad.
This one I found used almost a whole zucchini and chocolate.. how could I not do it?

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

2 1/2c all purpose flour

1/2c cocoa

2 /1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 c soft butter

3 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 teaspoons grated orange peel

2 cups coarsely shredded zucchini

1/2c milk

1 c chopped walnits or pecans (optional)

Glaze 2c icing sugar, 3 tablspoons milk and 1 teaspoon vanilla.

Preheat oven to 350 F

1) Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon - set aside

2) With a mixer beat sugar and butter until smoothly blended. Add eggs one at time, beating well after each addition. With a spoon mix in vanilla, orange peel and zucchini.

3) Alternately stir in dry ingrediants with milk, including the nuts with last addition.

4) pour the batter into a greased and flour dusted 10'in bundt pan. Bake for 50mins, but test at 45mins. Or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool in pan for 15 minutes and then on wire rack.

5) Drizzle Glaze over cake.

I did this a little bit differently, I didn't have an orange and I don't do nuts in cake so neither were added. Also as you can tell from the picture at the end, I don't have a bundt pan! I cooked this in a 9' round silicon pan so I didn't have to grease or flour it and I had to cut off the edges since the cake raised quite a bit over the sides before flattening. Because of the lack of bundt pan, the glaze just kind of sat on top.. which works for me! The cake ended up baking for over an hour and I rotated in the oven atleast twice, I ended up relying on the toothpick method to test doneness.

The picture isn't very pretty but the cake sure was yummy, very moist with a great taste of chocolate and a hint of cinnamon."


(ladypug note: isn't that cake that pretty pink cake stand the sweetest thing you've ever seen??)


Here are some additional zucchini recipes Lex sent along with the cake submission. They are photo-less, but sound wonderful all the same.

Zucchini Bread

3 eggs

1c olive oil or vegetable oil

1 3/4c sugar

2 c grated zucchini

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 c all purpose flour

3 teaspoons cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/c chopped walnuts, pecans (optional)

1 c dried cranberries/raisins/chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F

Grease and flour 2 8x4 inch loaf pans. (or line 24 muffin pans)

In a large bowl beat the eggs with a whisk, mix in oil and sugar then zucchini and vanilla. Combine flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder and salt as well as any nuts, fruits or chocolate chips. Stir the dry ingredients into the egg mixture. Divide the batter into the loaf or muffin pans.

Bake loaves for 60mins or until a toothpick comes out clean. Muffins will bake more quickly at 20-25 minutes.

Zucchini Patties (Another version of zoo sticks)

This recipe all depends on how much you actually want.

Grate zucchini onto a paper towel and squeeze out moisture.

In a bowl add the zucchini, one egg, a dash of salt and pepper, as much garlic powder as you prefer, and enough bread crumbs to make the mixture a batter.

Mix until well combined and has a thick texture.

Heat pan with enough oil to coat the bottom, add zucchini in small balls and flatten with a fork. Cook until golden brown on one side and then flip until golden brown on the other side.

Serve with ranch dressing."

NOM! I love zucchini, and these are three great ways to utilize this summer's harvest. So get to work grating, chopping, baking and eating those amazing squash, everyone. If you do, don't forget to take some pictures and send me your adventure. I'll post it on a future Kitchen Adventures blog.

And if you have a recipe you'd like to see featured on a Foodie Friday post, email it to me with a short description and pictures, if you have them.

Have a great weekend!