Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Earlier this week Angela at My Year Without Spending put out a request for zucchini recipes. Everyone who responded offered a delicious and nutritious way to serve zucchini; I recommended cooking it in chocolate cake! It is easy to eat zucchini sauteed with onions and garlic in spring, but my the end of the summer we, and all of our neighbors, are sick of zucchini. My daughter modified a chocolate zucchini cake recipe that she found in June/July 2006 edition of Taste of Home in an attempt to disguise late summer zucchini.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour*
1/4 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 cups zucchini, shredded

In a small bowl, combine flour, cocoa, and baking soda.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter, oil, and sugar until smooth. Add eggs, beating well after each egg. Add vanilla. Alternately add the dry ingredients and buttermilk until completely mixed in. Fold in zucchini.

Pour into a greased 13 x 9 baking pan. Bake at 325 for 45 – 50 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Frosting:

6 Tablespoons butter, softened
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1 cup flaked coconut

While the cake is cooling, beat together the butter, sugar and milk until light and fluffy. Fold in walnuts and coconut. Spread over the cake while it is still warm. Place in oven 4 – 6 inches from broiler and broil for 2 – 3 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely.

Alternate Mocha Fudge Frosting:

6 Tablespoons coffee
6 Tablespoon butter, softened
6 Tablespoon cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar

Combine coffee, butter, cocoa, and vanilla; mix well. Slowly add powdered sugar; beat on med. sped until well mixed. If the frosting is too thick you can add a little coffee or milk, if too thin add more sugar. Spread over a COOL cake.

A couple of notes:

* You can replace all-purpose flour with gluten-free flour.

1. You can make your own buttermilk by adding 1 Tablespoon lemon juice to 1 cup milk. Let it stand for 5 minutes, then use as you would use real buttermilk.

2. The original recipe called for 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon cloves. I like my chocolate as undiluted as possible, but if that sounds good to you add them.

3. This recipe has been linked to Feast Fridays at Momtrends.