When your garden serves you up courgettes, make cake – Chocolate Courgette Cake.
A common theme at this time of the year, for me at least, is to make the most of anything edible retrieved from my vegetable patch – my constant challenge to eliminate food waste and try new ways to serve seasonal veggies!
Carrot cake is considered old (but tasty) hat; pumpkin pie has been an American favourite for centuries; so inspired by the over zealous courgette plant in my backyard, I’ve turned my hand to courgette – a humble little veggie that has yet to have its time in the limelight. To be honest, in this instance I should say ‘marrow’ would be a more accurate descriptor.
Waste not, want not! Cute courgette or a grunty old marrow, not a vegetable should go to waste.
Courgettes are firm yet tender and sweet and can be eaten raw or lightly steamed, sauteed or baked.
By the time the humble courgette morphs itself into a marrow (which may seem like a matter of days when you aren’t looking), you’ll be searching for inspiration to use the older, bigger fruit. While in essence the same fruit, the marrow just loses its youthful gleam; the marrow is floury, has a bitter skin and inedible seeds. A useless vegetable? Hardly. Marrows are delicious in slow cook casseroles….and cake as I’ve discovered. Whether you use courgette or marrow, the only thing you’ll need to keep in mind is (a) in the grated form it measures the same weight and (b) if baking with marrow, remove the skin and seeds before attempting to use.
The result is a moist, moreish cake that the whole family will enjoy (several times over). No need to mention it contains vegetables … they are not recognisable by the time it is consumed and has all the yum factor that a carrot cake will. Bonus.
Chocolate Courgette Cake
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 5 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 2 tsp nutmeg
- 500g grated courgette/marrow
- 3/4 cup olive oil
- 1 1/2 cup white sugar
- 3 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla essence
Method
- Preheat oven to 180ºC.
- In a bowl, sift flour, baking powder, cocoa and nutmeg. Mix well.
- In a separate bowl mix the grated marrow, oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla.
- Make a well in the dry ingredients and add wet, mix well until all dry ingredients have been folded in.
- Line a spring based caked tin with baking paper. The mix will be sloppy, but pour into the cake tin and bake for approx 40 mins. Test with skewer to ensure cooked through, remove from oven and allow to cool for a further 10 minutes.
Ice, if you wish with chocolate icing. I used icing sugar, cocoa and a few dollops of cream cheese for a glossy, tasty icing. Top with what-ever you fancy, as I did with freeze dried blueberries.
June 12, 2018
Hi! I loved this recipe – I had to bake it a little longer than suggested, but I think my oven is a bit wonky. It’s really delightful. And then I let my daughter frost it in 6 colours, so it looks a bit scary, but still tastes great. :)
I’ve never been to your site before, but I was given a marrow (well, I was told it’s a marrow, but we’ll get to that…) in January while living in a tent up on the East Cape. I too believe in waste not – want not, but I am also a dreadful cook, and also quite a bad procrastinator, so the thing sat on the kitchen floor for nearly 5 months.
Finally, I cut it open this past weekend, found it to be still good, and went looking for something a little more exciting than cooking it up with some potatoes as was suggested to me. That’s when I came across your marrow fritters recipe – which was wonderful and yummy, despite it becoming more of a hash than fritters, because my frittering skills are .
There was more than half of the marrow left, so we followed up with this cake. :) (And there’s still a little more left, so I might try your nutella muffins or your blueberry brownies.)
But what I’m wondering is: is my marrow really a marrow? I’m from the States, where I’d never heard of the thing, and now I’m a suburbanite in Wellington who can’t cook, so not much better. This veggie I was given looks a bit like a yellow pumpkin, and inside the flesh is pale. The skin isn’t too tough – I can happily take a bite of it and not really notice the skin – and yet it lasted for 5 months in not especially favourable storage conditions, which a quick google search tells me is not a thing that marrows typically do. But maybe NZ varieties are different? I could maybe email or txt you a photo if you think you could take a look at it for me and venture a guess.
Anyways, thanks for your awesomeful website – I’m looking forward to exploring it. :)
June 16, 2018
Hi, thanks for your feedback. It sounds like you did a FABULOUS job with your marrow! Due to its texture, it does make a moist cake or brownie, so it doesn’t hurt to cook it for a bit longer. Marrows are pretty much just overgrown courgettes (or zucchinis) which can be either green or golden yellow, and are long and oval (think of a fattened cucumber), with pale flesh inside! If yours is a different shape (more pear-shaped) it could be a squash. Feel free to send through a photo if you like (julie@rediscover.co.nz) but the main thing is you had a great result and it tasted nice! Good on you! >>Julie