We all have certain foods that are reminiscent of our childhood and this Chocolate Zucchini Bundt Cake tops the list for me.
Out of all the baked goods my mom made, this was my favourite. Even though I knew zucchini was an ingredient, it never really registered with me. I was far more excited that it was chocolate and there were raisins in it! (chocolate covered raisins are another one of my favourite things). Raisins are optional – you can sub nuts if raisins in chocolate aren’t your thing.
I hadn’t had this cake in probably over 30 years and a few months ago, I dug out the recipe to help me deal with a big bag of summer zucchini. I wondered if it would still taste as good as it did when I was a child.
The short answer is, yes it did – exactly like it! And it was delicious!
Chocolate Zucchini Bundt Cake Recipe Notes
I followed an old, hand written recipe card of my mom’s, which can often be a challenge to interpret. It’s a weird combo of her own shorthand and her bad physician’s hand writing but she had a note that said the recipe came from “Jean” who I think may refer to the mom of one of my elementary school friends.
Raisins aren’t mandatory – if you don’t like ’em, don’t use ’em! You can sub nuts easily or do a mix of both.
The recipe calls for peeled zucchini which I missed when I made it so mine was unpeeled zucchini and it was fine.
The toughest part of making this cake is greasing and flouring your cake pan so that you have an easy cake release when it comes out of the oven. That’s something that takes practice and it had been so long since I’d made a cake that I had no idea if I would have it right or not – but, the cake turned out of the pan quite well with just a small tear on the side. Don’t be impatient – let it cool a full 15 minutes before trying to release the cake or you will have a mess on your hands!
You don’t need to glaze the cake but if you do, just drizzle your glaze. It’s easiest and it has a fun, splashy splashy effect!
- 2½ cups flour
- ½ cup cocoa powder
- 2½ tsp baking powder
- 1½ tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 cup of raisins or chopped nuts (or a mixture)
- ¾ cup vegetable/canola or sunflower oil
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 3 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tsp grated orange peel
- 2 cups grated, unpeeled zucchini
- ½ cup milk
- 1 cup confectioner's sugar
- ½ tsp vanilla
- 1-2 tbsp milk
- Preheat oven to 350F
- Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda
- Add in raisins/nuts and stir together
- In a separate bowl mix together oil and both sugars. Add the eggs, vanilla, orange peel and zucchini and beat together until well combined
- Slowly add the dry ingredients, alternating with the ½ cup of milk until the cake batter is smooth
- Pour the batter into a greased and floured 10 inch bundt pan
- Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick is inserted into the cake and comes out clean
- Let cook in the pan for 15 minutes before removing it
- Glaze if desired
- Blend together sugar, vanilla and milk - adjust the milk quantity so that it's not too thick or thin
- Drizzle over the cooled cake.
