Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI CAKE with CREAM CHEESE FROSTING is how I sneak zucchini into my kids!!! They have no idea and it tastes out of this world good!!!!
My kids don’t eat a lot of greens. In fact if my oldest son only eats greens when he has no idea!!! I have become a master at sneaking greens into his diet. I’m sort of a green ninja. I am in and out without them even knowing what they ate. I found a powder of raw greens and I sneak it into their smoothies and they have no idea!!! I’ve found with my oldest and pickiest eater that sometimes just renaming something I can get him to eat it. When he was little he loved chicken but wouldn’t try steak. One day I told him it was red chicken and he ate a whole plate! I have a ton of zucchini and made zucchini bread but they won’t eat it. So I decided to make Chocolate Zucchini Cake and top it with Cream Cheese Frosting! It worked!!!!! They were so grateful that I made chocolate cake and had no idea they were also eating zucchini.
Now that same super picky monkey asked what kind of frosting I used on top of the Chocolate Zucchini Cake. Why you ask, because the kid won’t eat cream cheese frosting!!!! Let me tell you why this is frustrating! He eats cream cheese on his bagels, he likes sugar and butter and vanilla so why on Earth wouldn’t he like cream cheese frosting?!?!?!?! “I don’t know, I just don’t.”
UGH!!!!!!! So needless to say, but I will anyway, when he asked me what kind of frosting it was I simply replied, “vanilla.” He ate it on top of the Chocolate Zucchini Cake and he loved it!!! When it came to hiding the zucchini after I grated it I squeezed the moisture out and then I ran the knife through it again to get the pieces even smaller. This was key. No matter how much sweet chocolate I put in there if they saw the little slivers of zucchini there would be no getting them to eat it. Chocolate Zucchini Cake was a hit and it has now been added to my list of sneaky food ninja recipes!
Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour plus 1 tbsp for coating the chocolate chips
- ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp allspice
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 medium zucchini grated and then squeezed dry (if hiding from kids you may want to chop the zucchini even smaller)
- ½ cup semisweet chocolate chips
- ½ recipe for Best Cream Cheese Frosting
Instructions
- preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
- grease a 9x9 inch square baking pan then coat with flour, shaking out the extra flour
- in a medium mixing bowl whisk together flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, allspice and cinnamon
- in a large bowl beat together olive oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla until light and fluffy, about 4 to 5 minutes
- add in the flour mixture and mix on low until just combined
- pour in the zucchini pieces and stir until evenly mixed through
- in a small bowl toss the chocolate chips with 1 tbsp of flour until coated
- add the chocolate chips into the cake batter and fold in with a spoon
- pour batter into the baking pan
- bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean
- allow to cool to the touch before topping with cream cheese frosting
This looks delicious, Aubrey! Can’t wait to try it 🙂
I love zucchini! I just started baking and am on a brownie baking spree! 🙂 Have to try this though! Thanks for sharing! @Creativity Linky