Chocolate Zucchini Bundt Cake

Finished cake!

Every year, my family and I maintain a small garden in the backyard. We planted zucchini, yellow squash, cucumber, tomatoes, and jalapeno. This year, it exploded. The yield we're getting for only having 2 of each plant is insane.

So, we have been eating zucchini as a part of dinner for a few weeks now and needed to do something else with it. Then I remembered chocolate zucchini cake. Perfect!

I searched for recipes until I found this one on The Washington Post website. It was originally in Bon Appetit in 1995. Let's hope it stands the test of time.


Chocolate Zucchini Bundt Cake 

Printed Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 stick unsalted butter, plus more for pan
• 2 1/4 c flour, plus more for pan
• 1/2 c unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 c granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 c vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 c cooled espresso or strong coffee
• 2 c grated zucchini
• 1 c semisweet chocolate chips
• Powdered sugar for dusting, optional

Prepping the zucchini:

The original recipe calls for a medium sized zucchini. It's best to grate the zucchini over a strainer or colander in order to allow the excess water to drain a bit. (I used my new mandolin! I wanted to try it out. While it did save my fingers, I think I'll stick to my box grater if I do it again. I think it would go faster.)

In order to have about 2 cups once grated. I chose one of my smaller zucchinis and wound up with 4 cups! Oh well, I might have to make a second cake. ;) 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325F. Coat the inside of the bundt pan with butter (get in those nooks and crannies!) then coat the inside of the pan with flour. Shake the flour around the pan to coat. Turn the pan over and gently tap to remove excess flour. 

Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl. Set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugar using a mixer. The recipe stated to begin on low then increase the speed to medium until it becomes incorporated and creamy. Well I threw out my first attempt because it was so sand-like. Attempt #2 still did not get creamy even after about half an hour of mixing. I have no idea why. It was certainly incorporated though, so don't fret if yours does the same mine did. I figure it's the ratio of butter to sugar. 

"Creamed" butter and sugar

After bringing together with spatula

Scrape down the sides of your bowl. Add eggs one at a time. (After the second egg, the mixture will feel thick. Once you add the next ingredients, it won't.) Add oil and vanilla, beating the mixture on medium until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl again. 

With the mixer on low, alternate mixing in the dry ingredients (the flour mixture we set aside earlier) and the espresso or strong coffee. I happened to have instant espresso in my house from making tiramisu so I used that. 

Remember, when alternating wet and dry ingredients, always start and finish with dry. 

Add one cup of the dry ingredients, then half of the espresso (1/4 c), then another cup of dry, then the last 1/4 cup of espresso, and finish with the last of the dry ingredients.

Now add in your zucchini and chocolate chips. It'll get kind of thick, so stir with a wooden spoon.

Now all that's left is to put the batter into your prepped bundt pan and bake! I have a gas oven (and also opened the oven door partway through to see how it was doing) so my bake time was about 1 hr 10 min, instead of the recipe's stated hour.

I did, however, figure out a good way to spend the time.






Once you've made sure the cake is finished baking by inserting a toothpick in halfway between the walls of the pan and having it come out clean, take it out of the oven. Allow it to rest about 15 min before transferring to a cooling rack and taking it out of the pan. 

This is the moment of truth- whether or not we prepped the pan well enough. My bundt pan isn't as decorative as some so I usually have good luck getting the cake out of the pan in one piece and without much hassle.

TA-DA!

Once the cake has completely cooled, you can add powdered sugar or a glaze to finish it. I opted for the more traditional powdered sugar. 

It was so good! You would be hard pressed to find evidence of the zucchini in this cake- no green specks. I really liked how you could taste the cinnamon. It really added a lot to this cake.