Saturday, January 15, 2011
gluten-free chocolate courgette cake recipe
With Kye and I feeling much better, the butter was once again pulled out from the fridge this morning to soften for the much anticipated chocolate courgette cake. I swear, that container of chopped, weighed butter has been in and out of the fridge more times than I care to remember over the past week. Every time I would go to make the cake, I’d get side-tracked. A phone call from a friend wanting to catch up, or my blocked nose that prevented me from tasting anything for days. Then yesterday I thought right today’s the day, but alas the yoghurt was still doing it's thing in the yoghurt maker. And I really didn’t feel like venturing into town to buy some more. Never before have I tried so hard to get it together to make a cake, so with that kind of build up, this cake really had to be a good one!
I’ve done away with the icing, but by all means ice it if you like. Also next time I make it I think I will fold the chocolate through the cake mixture prior to baking instead of sprinkling on top, leaving little nuggets of goodness to discover with every mouthful.
The texture of this cake is amazing. It’s light, but moist and is flecked throughout with little green shreds of courgette, that will make for a great conversation starter. Serve with a little dollop of softly whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream. Perfect.
Recipe converted to gluten-free from one I found in the New Zealand gardener “garden diary 2010”.
chocolate courgette cake recipe
This cake does contain butter and yoghurt as we now tolerate these. But if you are strictly dairy-free, try substituting dairy-free margarine and soy yoghurt. Also make sure your chocolate is dairy-free. (Most good quality dark chocolates are) If you eat wheat, you can simply use 2 1/2 cups plain wheat flour in place of the almond meal, brown rice and potato flours. Serves 12.
- 125g butter, softened
- 1 cup (200g) light muscovado sugar (or use soft brown sugar)
- 3 eggs
- 3/4 cup (75g) ground almonds (almond meal)
- 1 teaspoon natural vanilla essence
- 1/2 cup (120g) natural plain yoghurt
- 1 1/4 cup (150g) brown rice flour
- 1/2 cup (75g) potato starch (known as potato flour in NZ)
- 1/4 cup (40g) cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon mixed spice
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 3 cups (375g) grated courgette (zucchini)
- 100g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time beating well between additions. Add vanilla, yoghurt and ground almonds and mix well. Sift the dry ingredients and mix in with the grated courgette. Spoon into greased tin and sprinkle with the chopped chocolate. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the centre feels firm and a skewer comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 10-15 minutes then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely. Serve as is, or ice with chocolate icing.
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This looks amazing! Am bookmarking this to make as soon as I can get my hands on zucchini!
ReplyDeleteLooks gorgeous! I've been trying to use up excess zucchini from my many prolific plants, and this is a good idea, I will have to try. :)
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking that little bits of chocolate throughout the cake would be a nice little surprise and then you mentioned it! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for posting and introducing me to New Zealand food! I absolutely am going to follow your blog, and I'm going to share it with others in my program. I know several of us are hoping to find alternative food options, especially veggie, and I can already tell this blog is going to be a great resource! Thanks. :) Now I am even more excited about your country.
ReplyDeleteYour welcome Rebecca. I hope you enjoy your time here in NZ. :-)
ReplyDeleteMMMMMMM,..I already love a good gf corurgettes ( zucchini ) cake & to combine that with real chocolate must be so awesomely tasty & it looks pretty too!
ReplyDeleteyum - my friend makes me a gluten free chocolate zucchini cake and it's so lovely and moist, almost like a chocolate zucchini carrot cake. ell the best for your move!
ReplyDeleteThanks Jas. I might be in touch asking where you find all your gluten-free flours in Perth :-)
ReplyDeletemmm looks delish, my son is allerguc to milk protein, soy and eggs, is there substitutes I could use to make this cake? Like Gold n Canola marg (for butter) and egg????
ReplyDeleteHi there, I have made some suggestions to make this cake dairy-free up above the recipe in the headnotes, I tend to use olivani for a dairy-free butter substitute. As far as the eggs go, I'm not sure. I haven't done a whole lot of egg-free baking before.
ReplyDeleteThis is what http://www.livingwithout.com/ suggests
Replace 1 large egg with one of the following:
* 3 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce (or other fruit puree) + 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 tablespoon flax meal, chia seed or salba seed + 3 tablespoons hot water. (Let stand, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes or until thick. Use without straining.)
* Egg Replacer, according to package directions
* 4 tablespoons pureed silken tofu + 1 teaspoon baking powder
Replacing more than two eggs will change the integrity of a recipe. For recipes that call for a lot of eggs, like a quiche, use pureed silken tofu. Because egg substitutions add moisture, you may have to increase baking times slightly.
Note: To replace one egg white, dissolve 1 tablespoon plain agar powder into 1 tablespoon water. Beat, chill for 15 minutes and beat
again.
Hope that helps -emm
This is really delicious. I found it via pinterest on a search for something for dinner based on courgettes as they were what I had most of in the fridge! Turned out that dessert was the item featuring courgette. I halved the ingredients as I didn't want to have it go to waste, or more likely eat 10 portions myself!! I was too impatient to wait for it to properly cool, so ate it while still warm. Delicious and moist enough to not require any icing, cream or ice cream. DH does not require GF and can be a bit creeped out by vegetables in cakes etc but he also declared it delicious!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the recipe, I shall look forward to trying some more of yours.
I'm so glad you enjoyed it :-) It's always a bonus when the gluten-eating hubby loves it too!
Delete