Summertime Cake

The Cake Slice Bakers had some great choices this month. The Black and White Layer Cake sounded great and so did the Sour Cream Coffee Cake and Blueberry Surprise, but the one that grabbed my attention was the Zucchini Loaf from Seattle. It's baked in a large loaf pan, is moist from the shredded zucchini and uses veggie oil instead of butter.

I'm a summer gardener. I love planting flowers like morning glory and zinnia and veggies like cucumbers and beans. My two favorites are tomatoes and zucchini. Some years the snails decimate the veggie starts and so we only get one or two zucchini a week. Other years, like this one, we are harvesting a decent sized zucchini from at least four plants every day. Now we love zucchini and eat it just about every day, plus we give lots away, but that's a lot of zucchini. This recipe used up one and a half zucchini. Maybe I should make multiple recipes to freeze as Christmas gifts?

Anyway I decided to make the zucchini loaf, but since I discovered chocolate zucchini bread a few years ago I can't go back to plain, spiced loaves. It was easy to convert this recipe to chocolate, so that's what I did. I actually like this recipe better than my old one, so thank you Maida!

Be sure to check out what the other Cake Slice Bakers have baked this month. It's always fun to see which recipe had their name on it!

Zucchini Loaf From Seattle - Amended
from Maida Heatter's Cakes

3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
scant 1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon espresso powder
1/3 cup cocoa powder (I used Bensdorp Dutch-processed cocoa from King Arthur Flour)
2 cups shredded zucchini, packed, about 1 pound zucchini
2 eggs
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter or grease a 10 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan (10-cup capacity) or two loaf pans with combined 10-cup capacity. (I used a 9.5 x 5 x 2 1/2-inch pan and a tiny loaf pan for the remaining batter.) Dust the pan or pans with fine, dry bread crumbs and tap to shake out excess crumbs.

Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, espresso powder and cocoa powder. Set aside.

Clean the zucchini well and cut off the ends, then shred into large slivers. Don't drain. Pack into a 2-cup measure and set aside.

Beat together the eggs, sugar and oil, then add the vanilla and beat to combine. Add the sifted dry ingredients and beat to mix. Mixture will be thick. Add the zucchini, along with any moisture that has collected and mix thoroughly. The zucchini shreds thin the batter a little. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Scoop dough into the prepared pan(s), smooth the top(s), and bake. A large pan will take about 1 hour and 35-50 minutes. A cake tester gently inserted into the middle comes out clean and dry (except, maybe, for melted chocolate chips). Batter will rise up as it bakes and form a crack on top. That's O.K. 

Smaller pans will take less time. Check after 40 minutes. My tiny one was done in 30 minutes.

Cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Cover with a rack, turn over and remove the pan, turn over again. Cake will be right side up.

This cake is delicious when still slightly warm.

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