Yes, you read it right… a COURGETTE chocolate cake!  Or a ZUCHINI chocolate cake, for my American friends…

I’ll tell the story of how I got to try this out – bear with me…

Well, it’s my husband’s fault, really.  You see, this year we have be allowed to use a very small patch of land, just next to where we live, to plant a few green things.  I think John had great plans and imagined we’d be completely self-sufficient within a few months… but it hasn’t quite worked out that way really – unless we can live on courgettes and tomatoes for the rest of the year lol!

You see, the few seeds that John planted in the vegetable patch have produced an amazing abundance of courgettes!  Waaaayyy more than he ever imagined!  So he keeps bringing them to me, some of them absolutely huge (see photos below!) – and it got to the stage where I would have almost preferred him to have an affair than to have access to that vegetable patch (it certainly would give me a lot less work ?). 

So the other day I was thinking: what on earth can I do with all these courgettes!  I’ve made soup, I’ve made ratatouille, I’ve made a courgette bake… and I was running out of inspiration!!

So I suddenly thought, well… you can make a carrot cake, so a courgette cake must be possible!  I googled it, of course, but none of the recipes I saw really inspired me, so I decided to have a go at coming up with “Sophie’s easy and gluten free chocolate courgette cake” original!

The result was a great success with everyone – a delicious, moist chocolate cake… and knowing there’s actually a VEGETABLE mixed with all the butter and sugar kind of takes away the guilt – kind of!

Here it is – enjoy! 

Ingredients:

• 200 g butter
• 200 g dark chocolate
• 200 g sugar
• 100 g rice flour
• 100 g cornflour (see products used)
• 4 eggs
• 350 g grated courgette
• 50 g ground almonds
• 1 teaspoon gluten free baking powder 
• a pinch of salt

Method:

• Place the butter and chocolate in a bowl and melt (either in the microwave for 1 minute or over a pan of boiling water).
• Add the sugar, eggs and grated courgette, and mix well. 
• Add the flours, ground almonds, baking powder and salt and mix well again.
• Line a rectangular cake tin with non-stick baking paper and pour the mixture into the tin.
• Bake in the oven at 200°C for 50 minutes.
• Let the cake cool down and enjoy!