Chocolate Zucchini Cake

[brownbetty]

Happy belated Sneak a Zucchini onto your Neighbour's Porch Day! I encourage everyone to post recipes for using up zucchini. This is a slight reworking of a recipe I posted in 2005 (!).

Chocolate Zucchini Cake. This cake is so delicious and moist. It is also somewhat crumbly and hard to get out of the pan, probably because I always cook it using a gluten-free flour (pure rice flour.) If I used a better blend, it would probably be better.

If you are using chocolate chips, they have a strong tendency to sink to the bottom of the pan. I use chocolate chips every time despite this.

Preheat oven to 350 ° F

Mix:

• 3/4 cup of oil
• 2 t vanilla
• 1/4 c water
• 2 c sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 c grated zucchini

Sift in, mix:

• 1/2 c cocoa powder
• 2 t baking powder
• 1.5 t baking soda
• 2.5 c flour
• 1/2 t salt.

Pour into a bundt pan, or two loaf pans. If desired, sprinkle across the top

• 1 C chocolate chips

Cook for 50 minutes to an hour

Comments

[runpunkrun]

It's true. The world can always use more recipes that use zucchini. Thanks for sharing yours!

Summer Squash Casserole

[indywind]

Summer squash casserole (traditionally done with yellow crookneck squash) is also my favorite way to use up zucchini or any of those close relatives.

~4 cups sliced zucchini (or summer squash or mixture, whatever you have plenty of)
1 medium onion, diced
1 egg, lightly beaten (optional, can omit)
1/4 cup mayonnaise (can substitute veganaise or home-made mayonaise for ingredient control)
1/3 cup sour cream (or light sour cream, or blendered cottage cheese, or plain yogurt, regular or Greek-style)
1/4 cup milk (optional, can omit esp. w/runnier yogurt)
1 heaping cup shredded cheddar cheese (or more)
2 tablespoons butter or oil, melted
salt, pepper, herbs/spices to taste (I like parsley & dill)
~1/2 to 1 cup crushed GF buttery golden crackers, or cornflakes/puffed rice/Chex, or seasoned GF breadcrumbs (optional, can omit)


Preheat oven to 350F / medium (precision not necessary) and lightly grease a casserole dish. Steam (5-7 min) or parboil ( ~ 2 min) squash and onion until just tender; drain. In a large bowl, mix all ingredients except the crumb topping and butter (if not using crumb topping, reserve half the cheese for topping instead, mix everything else). Spread in casserole pan, scatter crumb topping on and drizzle with butter, bake until golden on top and bubbly around the edges, about 1/2 hour.

For people who can't have dairy but are fine with eggs/fat, I can attest that substituting additional mayonnaise and/or an extra beaten egg for the sour cream/yogurt works fine, as does--for people who are okay with dairy but not egg-- omitting the egg and substituting more dairy (and some extra oil/butter-- the right amount of fat is essential to good taste, don't substitute all nonfat stuff) for the mayonnaise. It'd probably work okay with vegan substitutes for the dairy and cheese, but I haven't tried that.

Re: Summer Squash Casserole

[runpunkrun]

Heeeey, if you're up to it, this would be a great recipe to post to the comm! All you'd have to do is put the instructions behind a cut. Either way, I really like that you've got egg-free and dairy-free options.