Chocolate Zucchini Cake

One way to guarantee kids eat vegetables is to cover it in chocolate. Obviously it's for a treat, or in my circumstance a trick as my twins refuse to eat zucchinis. They will willingly forfeit screen time just to avoid eating zucchini. Madness right? Hence why I hid the deliciousness of the zucchinis or courgettes in a cake. I was totally inspired by Sally's Baking Addiction, lots of very fab recipes there. This recipe is almost all Sally's, with my little spin.

Ingredients

2 cups plain flour

approx 3-4 cups of grated zucchini (squeeze some, not all liquid out)

1 cup dark cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp bicarb soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 dark brown sugar

4 large eggs

1/3 cup sour cream

2 tsp vanilla paste

2 tsp instant espresso powder/granules

250g dark mini choc chips

Frosting

Use whatever you like but I wanted something creamy to counter all the dark choc in the cake.

400g  Better Crocker chocolate hazelnut frosting (you don't have to use all)

200g Cadbury dairy milk

a little drizzle of vegetable oil

1. Sieve flour, cocoa, bicarb, baking soda and salt into a big bowl. Then add coffee powder and mix, set aside.

2. In another bowl mix oil, both sugars, eggs, sour cream and vanilla paste until sugar has dissolved. Then add zucchini and mix some more. Once it's combined add it to the dry ingredients and mix well. I used a handheld mixer. Then stir in the choc chips.

3. Divide into 2 x baking pans or 1 large, whatever you want. Oven should be preheated to 180 degrees.

4. Bake for about 30-45 minutes depending on your oven. I would check with skewer from about 30 minutes. I think mine took a wee bit more time then the original recipe said. Let it cool before frosting.

5. Melt the Cadbury dairy milk with a little drizzle of oil, just enough to give it a nice runny consistency. I didn't really measure, sorry... maybe 3 tablespoons give or take.

6. Slap the hazelnut frosting between the cakes and drizzle the milk chocolate all over the top.

7. Shove in face!