Chocolate Zucchini Snack Cake
Fall has almost abandoned us to winter here, but the end of the zucchini crop keeps lingering. I have a feeling that the heavy frost that covered my part of the world last night means the end has come, but there are still several quart-size freezer bags of grated summer squash in my freezer. This means that while the season for my great-grandma’s Italian-Style Zucchini Stew is finished, there might be some zucchini bread, muffins, or even a cake this winter.
My mother made this Chocolate Zucchini Cake throughout my growing-up years, when the zucchini in her garden was so plentiful that we simply couldn’t use it up quickly enough, or with enough variety, to prevent it from becoming mundane. “Zucchini again…?” was the last thing my mother wanted to hear.
I’m not sure where my mother got this recipe, but when my friend and colleague, Alicia, was suffering from an overabundance of the dark green squash (why do we all plant zucchini without exercising a modicum of restraint?) and suggested, a hint of desperation in her tone, that any zucchini recipes I might have were welcome, I made a photocopy and left it on her desk. A few days later, she made it and brought it to work to share, and it got raves.
It’s an unexpected sort of cake, with an even more unexpected flavor. The unusual combination of zucchini and chocolate suggests that this could have been a precursor to that hidden vegetable cookbook Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. But the spices – cinnamon and cloves – suggest otherwise. Yes, that’s right: zucchini, chocolate, cinnamon…and cloves. But trust me, here.
The cinnamon and cloves add something exotic to the cake – without them, it would just be an ordinary cocoaey snack cake. Instead, it has a warmth and depth of flavor that make it worthy of a cup of steaming French-pressed coffee over the plain brewed kind.
Taking a cue from Ina Garten, I’ve jazzed up the cocoa by adding some espresso powder to the batter – she’s right, coffee makes the flavor of the chocolate “pop.” I also switched to 70% cacao and dark chocolate chips. The old standbys were good, but the changes are even better, I think.
Chocolate Zucchini Snack Cake
1/2 cup unsalted sweet cream butter
1/2 cup non-GMO canola oil
1-3/4 cup evaporated cane juice or sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons unsweetened dark cocoa powder (70% cacao)
1 tablespoon espresso powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
2 cups shredded zucchini (one large squash will do it)
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Lightly spray a 9″ x 13″ pan with oil.
In the bowl of a mixer, cream together the butter, oil, and evaporated cane juice until fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients, then add them to the batter, about a cupful at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the zucchini until fully combined.
Pour into the prepared pan, and scatter the chocolate chips on top.
Bake 40-45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Serve to your girlfriends in the middle of the afternoon with a steaming cup of cafe presse and some yummy gossip.
