Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Monday, April 28, 2008

Pregnant women have to follow many rules. Some of them, like avoiding smoking, drinking and drug use make sense. Others, like avoiding soft cheeses, deli meats and sushi just seem unfair. This is my second pregnancy so I’m not quite as terrified as I was the first time and I haven’t quite followed all of the rules. I’ve never been a sushi lover so avoiding raw fish hasn’t concerned me. As for my indulgences, knowing that the majority of soft cheeses widely available in the United States are pasteurized I’ve continued my goat cheese and feta habit. And since Philadelphia is the hoagie capital of the world (in my opinion anyway- where else can you get a sandwich this good?) I haven’t exactly avoided lunchmeats.

Yesterday, in a quest to fill my freezer with some foods for when the baby arrives and use up the last of the fruits and vegetables frozen last summer, I spent a good portion of the day cooking. I made pancakes and muffins for breakfasts, a baked ziti with local sausage from Meadow Run Farm for dinners, and chocolate zucchini cake to eat, not freeze, just because I wanted to clear out the rest of last summer’s zucchini from my Red Earth Farm CSA. Of course no recipe calls for enough zucchini to clear out the stash in its entirety, and even after adding more than the recipe called for I still have three cups of frozen shredded zucchini ready to bake later this week, but the cake is just so good that I have to share the recipe.

The cake is so good that I think I may have accidentally eaten more batter than necessary, raw eggs and all, and everyone knows that you shouldn’t eat raw eggs, local or not, especially when you’re pregnant. But should you bake this cake you might want to throw caution to the wind and give the batter a little taste- just a little one because you may not be able to stop once you start. And perhaps by tasting the batter (and licking the bowl clean) you’ll be able to stop yourself from eating entirely too much cake once it’s baked, cooled and glazed.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake
adapted from Simply Recipes
1 1/2 cups regular all-purpose flour, unsifted
1 cup whole wheat flour, unsifted
1/2 cup cocoa
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup soft butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
3 cups coarsely shredded zucchini
1/2 cup milk
Glaze (directions follow)

Preheat the oven to 350°F.
1 Combine the flours, cocoa, baking powder, soda, salt, and cinnamon; set aside.
2 With a mixer, beat together the butter and the sugars until they are smoothly blended. Add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture one at a time, beating well after each addition. With a spoon, stir in the vanilla, orange peel, and zucchini.
3 Alternately stir the dry ingredients and the milk into the zucchini mixture.
4 Pour the batter (the batter will be very thick) into a greased and flour-dusted 10-inch tube pan or bundt pan. Bake in the oven for about 50 minutes (test at 45 minutes!) or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan 15 minutes; turn out on wire rack to cool thoroughly.
5 Drizzle glaze over cake.

Glaze: Mix together 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 1/2 Tablespoons milk, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until smooth.  If you really like orange flavoring omit the vanilla and add ½ teaspoon of orange zest.

This cake won’t last long. Now I need to find a good recipe for the last of the sour cherries.