Chocolate Zucchini Cake
This Chocolate Zucchini Cake is rich, moist, and loaded with melty chocolate chips—no frosting required. A whisk, a spatula, and some zucchini are all you need.
Ingredients
Cream together:
- 1 stick butter softened
- ½ c oil can substitute applesauce instead
- ½ c sugar
- ½ c brown sugar
Add in:
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ c buttermilk
Fold in:
- 2 c grated unpeeled zucchini about 2 ½ medium
Sift together:
- 2 ½ c all-purpose flour sifted
- ½ c unsweetened cocoa
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp cloves
Sprinkle on top:
- 1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
- ¾ c chopped nuts optional
Instructions
- Butter and flour a 9x13 inch baking pan, or a bundt pan.
- Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and cloves into a medium bowl.
- Beat the sugars, butter and oil (or applesauce) in a large bowl until well blended.
- Add the eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Add the vanilla extract and buttermilk.
- Add in dry ingredients. Stir well.
- Gently fold in grated zucchini.
- Pour into prepared pan.
- Sprinkle with chocolate chips (and nuts, if using).
- Bake 45-50 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Cool cake completely in pan.
Notes
You can use a hand or stand mixer for this, but as long as your butter is very soft, you can do it all by hand.
The moisture from the zucchini allows you to easily swap in whole wheat flour if you want. If you don't tell, no one will call you on it.