Life at Cloverhill

Recipe

Whole Wheat Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Cream Cheese Glaze

Anyone else trying to find ways to use up their zucchini? Me too! We’ve been lucky to be given lots of great vegetables this year from family and friends, but I’m still struggling to find ways to use it all up.

Friday night we had company over to celebrate the start of the long weekend, so it seemed like a great time to make up a big bundt cake and use up some of the mountains of zucchini that we have in the fridge.
Don’t bundt cakes always remind you of large doughnuts?
Its hard for me to pick a favourite part of a chocolate zucchini cake. Is it the drippy cream cheese glaze running down the sides?
Or is it the super moist centre loaded with melted chocolate chips?
It’s a dilemma that I’m willing to investigate further with another piece.

 
Whole Wheat Chocolate Zucchini Cake

  • 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 cups (about 1 pound) shredded zucchini
  • 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 10-cup bundt pan.

In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.
In a large mixing bowl mix together the sugars and butter until smooth. Add buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla and mix well.
Add half the dry ingredients, stirring until evenly moistened. Stir in the zucchini, then the remaining flour mixture.
Right about now it started to smell just like when my mom used to make this when I was younger. I love the power of sense memory 🙂
Stir in chocolate chips and pour the batter into prepared pan. Smooth out the top with a spatula.
Bake until the top springs back when lightly touched, about 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Loosen the cake around the edges and center tube with a thin, flexible spatula, then put a plate on top of the pan and flip the cake over. Cool completely before adding icing or glaze.
This is always a common occurrence in our house – Whiskey sniffing around in the background, always hoping that he’ll get a scrap. Doesn’t he know that chocolate is bad for dogs?

Cream Cheese Glaze

  • 4 oz cream cheese, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 3 to 4 tbsp milk
Beat cream cheese until very creamy. Beat in powdered sugar. Stir in vanilla. Add 2 tablespoons milk and combine well. Add more milk until by the tablespoon until you get your desired consistency.
Drizzle over the Whole Wheat Chocolate Zucchini Cake. Don’t worry if you get a little on the table, like I always do.
Use a clean damp paper towel to clean up any drips along the edge (or on the table in my case).
Yummy, delicious bundt cake. With zucchini sneakily hidden inside. No one will ever know.
On a final note for the day, the cake plate I used is a cute vintage piece that my mother picked up for me at a local garage sale this summer.
I love the little feet on the bottom!

 


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