Zucchini Madness

Every Thursday this Summer, I head over to our local farmer's market to pick up a large box of veggies. Stephanie and I split a share of veggies and thank goodness we split a share. It's too much! Every week, there's a pretty good variety of vegetables and some fruit, but I've picked up several varieties of zucchini over the past couple of weeks and I needed to find some creative uses. First, I made a loaf of zucchini bread which turned out pretty tasty, but I still had more zucchini to use up. Stephanie picked up some yellow zucchini to grate into cheese quesadillas for the kids. She's her own sneaky chef. The kids can't even taste it and it blends in with the cheese! Well, she has been looking for some creative uses for zucchini as well and she found this cake recipe from the Fanny Farmer Baking Book. I actually googled the recipe and I found it here, but Steph made a few changes and it might be my new favorite cake. I thought I'd share the recipe here in case you find yourself with a lot of zucchini as well.


ingredients
preheat 350 degrees

12 TB butter, softened
1 C sugar (the original recipe call for 2 C of sugar, but Steph made it with 1 1/3 C and I made it with 1 1/4 C and I think it could be reduced further to 1 C)

3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

zest from 1 orange

2 C grated zucchini (Okay, I grated the zucchini in my food processor, but Steph took it one step further. After grating the zucchini, she put the blade attachment in the food processor and pulsed it to make the zucchini even smaller. In the cake, you can't even see the zucchini this way!)


2 3/4 C flour ( I used 1 C of whole wheat flour and AP flour for the remaining flour. Next time, I might increase the amount of whole wheat and reduce AP.)

1/2 C cocoa powder (I used Droste Dutched cocoa.)

1 1/4 tsp baking powder (double this for low elevation. I live at 8600 feet!)

3/4 tsp baking soda (double this for low elevations.)

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cloves ( The original recipe calls for cinnamon, but I just don't like chocolate and cinnamon together. I think the cloves give this a nice deep spicy flavor.)

1/2 C milk

1. cream butter and slowly add sugar
2. add eggs
3. add vanilla
4. add orange zest
5. add grated zucchini
6. blend well!
7. mix dry ingredients in a small bowl.
8. alternate adding dry ingredients and milk to batter.
9. mix 1 TB melted butter and 1 TB cocoa powder and brush completely over a bundt pan. (I swear by this method. I used to have my bundts stick to the pan, but not using this method. I actually do this first before I start making the batter. Make sure you coat every crevice of your bundt pan with the butter/cocoa mixture!)
10. 50-60 minutes until fork comes out clean.

For the glaze

Whisk together 1 C powdered sugar, 3 TB orange juice and zest of one orange.

Pour over the completely cooled bundt. ( I believe that the glaze makes this cake plenty sweet.)

Enjoy with a tall glass of milk!!!