Courgettes have recently become my favorite vegetable to add to cake. Sorry, carrots! But since I’ve made mine award-wining cake way too many times since December, I wanted to try something new. Here I present a recipe for a lush chocolate courgette cake – this time the courgettes are rather unnoticeable taste-wise but they give the chocolate cake the extra bit of moisture any cake needs. Yum! Here we go…
Chocolate courgette cake with cream cheese filling
Ingredients:
- 4 eggs
- 250g plain flour
- 375g caster sugar
- 350ml vegetable oil
- 350g grated courgette
- 65g cocoa powder
- 2 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 2tsp. cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 100g mixed chopped nuts (or almonds or hazelnuts – according to preference)
Method:
In a deep bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking soda & powder, salt, cocoa and cinnamon. Mix well until it is all blended.
In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs lightly. Add to dry mix together with the oil and whisk everything together. If the dough is too thick, you can add a little hot water but I left it thick as the courgettes add plenty of moisture afterwards. Grate the courgette and add it to the chocolate mix. Stir in the chopped nuts. Butter and flour the sides of a 9-inch cake tin, butter and line the bottom of it. If you like, you can bake the 2 layers of the cake in 2 tins: just split mix in 2 but I like to bake one and cut it into 2 slices.
Bake in a preheated oven to 180 degrees Celsius for about an hour or until a skewer comes out clean.
To decorate:
Split cake in two. Prepare THIS cream cheese frosting. Spread plenty between layers and ice the cake with the rest. Decorate as desired.
Behold the finished product:
