Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Sometimes when you bite into sweet things and see the color green it can be a bad thing...a very bad thing indeed.

Sometimes you can bite into a sweet treat and seeing green is an awesome, super awesome thing!  This is one of those times!  This cake has 3 cups of zucchini in it!  In my book that makes it a vegetable more than  a dessert. : )  I made this cake for a work function and nobody even noticed there was zucchini in it!  Look at the picture above...can you see the greeness?  Nope.  Wow, chocolate sure is awesome!  Zucchini is super wet so it helps make this an incredibly moist cake...no seriously, it is really moist.

I am about to head out on a road trip with the baby sister to bring her back to college in Florida.  Hum, road trip anyone?  I have done a pretty decent job at avoiding road trips over the last year, so I guess I am due for one.  18 hours in the car...yikes a what?  Guess this is our last hurrah as two unmarried sisters driving across many States together.  She gets married next summer so this will never happen again!  I tried my hardest to get out of it, but my other little sister has flown and driven with me so many times when I moved that I figured it was my turn to drive a sibling super far away.

When I moved from California back to Texas my little sister flew from TX to Cali to drive with me.  It was a crazy road trip.  At one point we were in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night with no cell phone reception, and realized we were completely out of gas!  We drove slowly and with the windows down, a/c off, praying the Rosary for about 30 minutes and literally rolled into this little gas station.  Scariest thing ever.  Now I pay attention to the gas levels while road tripping...and hopefully this trip is super uneventful!

• Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
• adapted slightly from the King Arthur recipe
• 
  
• 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) butter
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup sour cream, buttermilk, or yogurt
• 2 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons espresso powder, instant coffee, or finely ground coffee  (optional but tasty)
• 3 cups shredded zucchini - I shredded mine in my food processor
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly grease a 9" x 13" pan.

In a large mixing bowl, beat together the butter, oil, sugar, vanilla, baking soda, baking powder, and salt until smooth.

Beat in the eggs.

Stir in the sour cream, buttermilk, or yogurt alternately with the flour.

Add the cocoa and espresso powder, mixing until smooth.

Fold in the zucchini and 1/2 cup chocolate chips - mix until smooth. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake the cake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the top springs back lightly when touched, and it seems set.

Remove from oven and allow cake to cool completely.

Make cream cheese frosting and spread over cake.

6 oz cream cheese, room temperature

1 stick butter, room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 # powdered sugar, which is about 1 3/4 cup

Cream the butter and cream cheese until smooth - about 30-40 seconds.  Add sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth.  Spread over cooled cake.  Store in the fridge.

Make this cake, put gas in your car, pray that my sister and I have safe travels, and listen to this song:

Eat your heart out,

Dagny