Zucchinicorn Cake

The neighbours round the corner put out a basket of free courgettes on Thursday. Rosie, Liz and I collected 4 - they were generously sized. I've had one over two days sliced and pan fried in butter served with some smoked mackerel for my evening meal. The other I made into two courgette cakes. One to eat, one to freeze. 

I adapted the BBC Good Food recipe I used a couple of years ago. It's rich and quite satisfying without any added topping. I decided that making two in two loaf tins rather than one huge round tin was more efficient. I forgot to put the nuts in - and so had to stir them in when the mix was in the tins. But the cakes have turned out pleasingly well. Such an easy recipe... 

350g self-raising flour

50g cocoa powder

1 tsp mixed spice

175ml oil

375g sugar

4 eggs

450g grated courgette

100g mixed nuts, roughly chopped

Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan. In a large bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, mixed spice and 1 tsp salt. In another bowl, combine the olive oil, sugar, eggs, vanilla essence and grated courgette. Mix the dry and wet mixture until just combined, then fold in the toasted hazelnuts. Line two loaf tins with greaseproof paper, then pour in your mixture. Bake for about 40-50 mins, or until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 10 mins, then turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

Liz made a plain courgette cake. Rosie declared it to be a Unicorn Cake. I said that in America, courgettes are called zucchini. And unicorn and zucchini share a lot of letters. So Liz suggested we had made Zucchinicorn Cakes. 

One of them is well wrapped, and in the freezer, waiting for Bob to arrive next month.