Luz, Emma, Cat, Chris, and Rubio

Yesterday was Cat's birthday. Since I love her, I decided to make her a cake. And since I forgot Dani's half birthday, I allowed her to dictate what cake would be created for Cat's special day. With virtually no hesitation she landed on zucchini chocolate cake.
Yes. Zucchini cake. Open minded person that I am, I agreed that we could bring this cake dream of hers to fruition. We trekked through the rain to Trader Joe's, purchased our weight in beer, chocolate, and cucumbers and returned to my abode to commence the baking.

It was only once we had arrived home and loaded all the alcohol into the fridge that we realized we were missing the most crucial ingredient: zucchini. When I gently proposed making a non-zucchini cake, Dani lost her shit. In a frantic effort to avoid a full-on temper tantrum, I quickly suggested that we go up to 24th street to purchase a zucchini. Her face brightened immediately, and we set out to obtain the key ingredient.

Dani's mom kindly supplied us with this recipe from joyofbaking.com, with a few adjustments. We also used a springform pan rather than a loaf pan to maximize cake-like-ness.

Chocolate zucchini cake with weird but bomb frosting

* 1 1/2 cups shredded raw zucchini
* 1 cup flour
* 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1/4 tsp baking powder
* 1/4 tsp salt
* dash of cinnamon
* 1/2 cup butter, melted (original calls for canola oil)
* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* 2 eggies
* 1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350˚. Grease a springform pan, or another round cake pan.

Grate the zucchini and set aside. Mix flour, bp, bs, salt, cocoa powder and cinnamon. Mix the sugars with the melted butter. Mix in the eggs and vanilla. Add the zucchini. Slowly add the flour mixture and stir until all is combined and batter-like.

Pour batter into the greased pan and bake for 25-30 minutes. (If you do use a loaf pan, increase baking time to about 50 minutes).














Next came the frosting. I must give full credit to Dani for this magnificent experiment. It went something like this:

* 4 oz baking chocolate
*1/4 cup butter
* 1 1/3 cup baker's sugar
* 1 tsp vanilla
* pinch of salt
* 1/2 cup sour cream or creme fraiche

Melt baking chocolate with butter in a double boiler. Add 1/3 cup sugar (preferably baker's sugar) to the mixture. Remove from heat and let cool. Add the rest of the sugar, the vanilla and salt and mix well. Once mixture is fully cooled, stir in the sour cream. All we had on hand was European style sour cream, which is essentially creme fraiche, and I must say no one was complaining as we scooped gobs of extra frosting straight into our mouths.














When all was frosted and done, I believe everyone involved appreciated Dani's (mildly temperamental) adamant insistence on zucchini cake, myself included.