real life test kitchen: chocolate & zucchini cake
I’ve been wanting to write about our friend Clotilde Dusoulier’s book Chocolate & Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen for a few weeks now, but wanted to make sure I did it justice. This weekend, I finally had the time to dive in and cook up one of the recipes in the book — not just any recipe, but the one that sort of started it all, Chocolate & Zucchini Cake (or Gateau Chocolat & Courgette). At first, you may not think those two ingredients belong together, but the zucchini makes the cake amazingly moist and gives you an excuse to eat an extra slice (eat your veggies!). I followed the recipe in the book (which is just slightly different than the one the blog) except instead of using a spring-form pan, I poured the batter into a bundt pan. I opted to use olive oil, instead of butter in the recipe (Clotilde offers the option) and didn’t miss it all. I noticed the blog recipe says you can use whole wheat flour, which I will use next time, just to up the good-for-you quota. But I must say that Clotilde gets four stars for this baby — this cake is amazing! I brought it to work and my co-workers were duly impressed. Even that cat was tempted (as you can see from the photo) though I managed to keep him away. I heartily recommend you buy the book and make the cake! — Angela M.
June 20th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Looks like I’ve got my weekend dessert plans lined up. Veggies and Chocolate - who woulda thought.
June 20th, 2007 at 7:33 am
Yummy
June 20th, 2007 at 8:03 am
The cake looks great! I think though that the term is duly impressed.
June 20th, 2007 at 8:08 am
M, you are too right! Fixed! thanks.
June 20th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
sooooo good, d the cat is in the background checking it out!
June 20th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Ha, ha — jeez, Chad, I never would have noticed that!
June 20th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
That cake looks fantastic! I’m filing this away for when my garden produces an abundance of zucchini.
Love the cat in the photo!
June 23rd, 2007 at 9:43 am
I’ve not made a chocolate zucchini cake but I’ve made lots of loaves of chocolate zucchini bread. Good by itself and even better with a cream cheese spread on it, flavored with different things such as orange or lemon zest.
I love recipes like this.
August 20th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
I made this for my book club this weekend and it was a huge hit–dense and fudgy and moist without being overly sweet. Oh, and I accidentally left out one of the three eggs called for in the recipe, and it was still lovely (who doesn’t like a forgiving recipe?). I recommend that you reveal the presence of zucchinis after everyone’s tried it and see the surprised faces!