Chocolate Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cake

With one large zucchini I had quite the baking day.

all of this from one zucchini---2 chocolate zucchini cakes,
 3 loaves of bread, a dozen muffins

The Chocolate Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cake recipe comes from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking Cookbook, always a great source for baking recipes.

Cake

Ingredients:

2 1/2 c whole wheat flour
1/2 c cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 c brown sugar
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c canola oil
1/2 c buttermilk
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 c shredded zucchini
1 c chocolate chips

Glaze

1/2 c cream
3/4 c chocolate chips
2 tsp corn syrup  (I make a similar glaze for another recipe without the corn syrup so I omitted this)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°, grease and dust tube pan with cocoa.
Whisk flour, cocoa, baking soda & powder, salt in medium bowl.
In mixing bowl blend sugar and oil together, then add eggs, buttermilk & vanilla mix well.
Add flour mixture alternately with zucchini till blended.  Stir in chocolate chips.
Pour batter into prepared tube pan.  Bake about 45-50 minutes.  Let cool about 15-20 minutes then remove from tube pan, slide knife around edges to ease the cake out of the pan.

When completely cooled mix glaze mixture in top of double boiler stir till smooth then drizzle over cooled cake.

options:  this would be great with walnuts stirred in batter, add a couple tsp of cinnamon, dried cherries

when making something chocolate I dust the pan
with cocoa instead of flour

you could use a bundt pan or a 9 x 13 pan

a special treat this day I had duck eggs from a friend who owns
a duck farm.......the give baked goods a richer flavor

I made it to this stage then froze it, when defrosted it gets
a chocolate glaze or you could dust it with confectioner sugar

Chocolate Smithwick's Cake

St Patrick's Day Celebration

For us St Patrick's Day lasts more than a day.  My husbands hometown has a strong Irish history, Girardville, PA.  They celebrate with a parade the Saturday after March 17th so this year it was a whole week later.  Why would they wait so long?  Well one of the biggest draws are the bagpipers but this is the busiest month for them so to be able to have more bands available it helps having the  celebration later.  It also gives the bands one more performance on the calendar by being later.  It has become a type of reunion gathering for friends, families, past residents, and those that just love an Irish celebration.  So this cake (original recipe was with Guinness) was the perfect choice for a dessert on parade day.  There are multiple versions on the web, pinterest, many blogs, tv chef sites, the cake is very close to the old fashioned Coca Cola Cake recipe always a favorite & a very moist cake.  This cake would be good with just a dusting of powdered sugar also adding the icing makes it rich enough you need to serve thin slices.


Chocolate Smithwick's Cake

Smithwick's pronounced "smid icks"

preheat oven to 350° prepare bundt or tube pan

2 c Smithwick Beer  (Guinness or your favorite will work along with Pepsi or Coke)
1 c cocoa powder
4 oz unsalted butter
1 1/4 c sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
1 c plain Greek yogurt (or sour cream)
2 eggs
2 c all purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Directions:

In a sauce pan heat together beer, cocoa, & butter when butter is melted add sugar and stir till blended--remove from heat and allow to cool.

In a small bowl whisk together yogurt and eggs then mix together with cooled chocolate mixture.

In large bowl mix flour, soda, and salt.  Add wet to dry ingredients and whisk together until just blended it will be a little lumpy don't over mix.

Pour into prepared pan bake for 35-40 min turn half way through baking time.

Cool then turn onto plate.

Icing:

Ingredients:

2 oz chocolate
4 oz unsalted butter
1 tsp salt
1/4 c beer
2/3 c cocoa powder
2 1/2 c powdered sugar

Directions:

Melt chocolate & butter together over low heat then pour into food processor with rest of ingredients pulse till icing has a smooth texture pour over cake let drip over sides.  It is a bit thick so you may need to push it a bit to the edge.

Stir cocoa, beer and butter till butter is melted then add sugar.

Mix yogurt and eggs together then add to cooled chocolate mixture.

Gradually combine mixtures.

Mix melted chocolate mixture with beer blend well for icing.

Ice cooled cake with Smithwick's Icing.

let icing run down sides

Crockpot Molten Lava Cake

Rich gooey chocolate who can resist?  Lava cake an all time favorite at any restaurant made here in a crock pot.......soooo easy.  Throwing something in a crock pot gives you so much time to spend on the rest of the meal or other things.  This is so simple plus the ingredients are easy to keep on hand. Brew a pot of coffee or tea you are good to go.  There are a number of variations of this on Pinterest this was rich enough for me but some recipes added peanut butter or used brown sugar, it definitely needs that scoop of vanilla ice cream though.  I have 2 crockpots the size is no longer on them but I think the larger one is about 5-6 qts. and the smaller about 3 qts for this I used the smaller one.  If you use a larger one just watch the cooking time it may cook faster.

Crockpot Molten Lava Cake

Ingredients:

1 c sugar

1 c flour

3 T unsweetened cocoa

2t baking powder

1/2 t salt

1/2 c milk

2 T melted butter

1/2 t vanilla

1 c chocolate chips

1 3/4 c hot water

3 T unsweetened cocoa

3/4 c sugar

Directions:

Butter or spray inside of crockpot.

Mix first 5 ingredients through salt.

Mix milk, butter & vanilla.

Combine the dry and wet ingredients.

Pour into prepared crockpot.

Top with chocolate chips.

Mix hot, water cocoa & 3/4 c sugar until sugar is dissolved.

Pour into crock pot on top of choc chips.

Cover cook on high for 2 hours, then turn

to low and cook 2 more hours.

To serve scoop out warm & with vanilla ice cream.

I thought this was best the same day, leftovers could be refrigerated 

and warmed in the microwave you but most of the liquid chocolate gets

absorbed but still moist and tasty.  

Scoop warm from crockpot.

It needs that scoop of ice cream!

Chocolate Zucchini Oatmeal Muffins

This is as easy as it gets, just mix up your ingredients and throw it in the oven.  This recipe makes a very dense chocolate treat, somewhat healthy considering you are only using 3/4 c sugar for the whole recipe which makes about 24 muffins. The zucchini and oatmeal really make a moist texture muffin.  I'll be making these again.





Chocolate Zucchini Oatmeal Muffins

Preheat oven to 350°

Ingredients:

1/2 c boiling water
2 c grated zucchini
3/4 c oatmeal
1/2 c canola oil
3 eggs
1 T brewed coffee
3/4 c sugar
1 1/2 c flour (I used one cup reg flour and half cup whole wheat)
1/2 c cocoa (Hershey it is our local brand!)
1 T cinnamon
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp kosher salt
chocolate chips

Mix together zucchini, oatmeal and boiling water.  Then mix in rest of ingredients down to chocolate chips, when well mixed stir in chips.  Scoop into prepared muffin tins makes about 24, you can fill to the top they don't really rise to much.  Bake at 350° for 12-15 min.

***After revisiting the site where I found the recipe that led to this I see in the directions she added cinnamon it wasn't listed in the ingredients but 1 T of cinnamon would be a good addition I added it to my ingredient list but it didn't go into this batch.

Recipe originally found at:

Kellys Cozy Kitchen     Thanks to her for posting it!

Deep Dark Chocolate Cheesecake

While I enjoy an occasional piece of cheesecake it isn't a favorite.  A brownie or chocolate chip cookie would be the top of my dessert list.   This is Austin's birthday so I did something he would like, Mexican meal and a chocolate cheesecake for dessert.  I haven't made a chocolate cheesecake in about 30 years but this came out amazing.  The recipe comes from Bon Appetit  2006 from Jeanne Kelley.  I adapted it a bit, this is a cheese cake to feed a large crowd.  It is so rich and dense you'll want to serve very small pieces.



Deep Dark Chocolate Cheesecake
      (my adapted version)

Ingredients:

Crust:  24 chocolate wafers (I substituted Oreos--good choice)
           1 T sugar  (I omitted this)
           1/4 c butter, melted

Filling:

1-- 9 oz bar of your favorite semi-sweet chocolate
4 -- 8oz pkgs cream cheese @ room temperature
1 1/4 c sugar
1/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder
4 large eggs

Topping:

3/4 c whipping cream
6 oz semi sweet chocolate
1 T sugar


For crust:
   preheat oven to 350°.  Butter 9" spring form pan or 13 x 9 pan.

Place all cookies and sugar in food processor until finely ground, then add melted butter and pulse till blended.  Press into pan and bake 5 minutes, let cool while making filling.

Filling:

In double boiler melt chocolate till smooth, let cool till room temp.
Wipe out processor blend cream cheese, sugar and cocoa till well blended, then add eggs one at a time blending between each.  Mix in chocolate.  Pour mixture over crust and smooth out top.  Bake for about 1 hour or till just set, top will look dry.  Cool 5 min, run wet knife around edge to loosen from pan.  Refrigerate overnight ( I made it in the morning and refrigerated it about 6 hours)

Topping:

In top of double boiler again melt chocolate with cream and sugar stirring well.  When melted, blended and smooth spread over top of cake to within 1/2 inch of cake edge.  Chill about 1 hour.  If using spring form you can now release sides and remove cake.  Cover with foil and keep refrigerated.

crumbs baked 5 min @ 350°

spread cream cheese layer over crumbs

bake about 1 hour @ 350°

let cool, run knife around edge (mainly to remove if
using springform pan), refrigerate overnight

spread topping to just short of edge, refrigerate 1 hour

top with some grated chocolate

Enjoy!

a few of the crew stopped by

By the way,
it is a messy clean up!

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Perfect dessert for your Valentine's Day meal.  This is simple to make and most of these ingredients will be on hand (unless you live in a house where people sneak the baking chocolate so when you reach in to get it there is an empty package there).  Obviously I speak from experience so the plan is to always have a package hidden, it works until they find your hiding spot and then you must find a new one.

This should be made in a springform pan which I did not do, so it puffed up over the sides of my cake pan--springform or higher side pan next time.  You need the higher sides it will puff up and then deflates when it cools.
This comes form Martha Stewart and its a keeper.

Flourless Chocolate Cake


6 T unsalted butter, plus some for preparing pan
8 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
6 large eggs, separated and at room temp
1/2 c sugar

confectioners sugar for dusting
dollop of whip cream to serve


Preheat oven to 275° with the rack in the center.  Butter the sides and bottom of 9" springform pan, I also placed parchment on the bottom.

Place butter and chocolate in double boiler stir till melted, let cool slightly then stir in egg yolks.

In large bowl beat egg whites till soft peaks form.  Gradually add in sugar and continue beating till glossy stiff peaks form.  Whisk about 1/4 of egg whites into chocolate mixture then gently fold in the rest of the egg whites.

Pour batter into prepared pan bake for 45-50- min till sides start to pull away and center is set.  Cool completely before removing from pan.  Dust with confectioner sugar and serve with whip cream.