Julie Surprise: Flourless Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Yesterday marked the anniversary of my youngest daughter's second birthday. (WHAT???)
Every time we had mentioned to her that she would be having a birthday in the days leading up to it, she would always respond with, "Yeah! Cake!" Then, the night before when I told her I needed to go to bed so I could make her a cake the next day she started begging for chocolate.
Luckily, that had already been my plan. Thanks to the generosity of my awesome neighbors, I had fresh garden produce, including raspberries and zucchini from my friend Kelly. (One needs something fibrous if one is going to make a cake without flour.)
I also ended up borrowing some cocoa powder from my friend Jenni a few doors down because, wouldn't you know? I totally forgot we were all out until I started making the cake!
I just felt that I ought to mention these circumstances so that we could give credit were credit is due.
Thanks so much ladies! This cake couldn't have happened without you!

Flourless Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup of Unsweetened Shredded Coconut 
• 1/2 cup of Peanut Butter (Or Almond Butter etc.)
• 2 cups of Coconut Palm Sugar
• 8 Eggs (Separated)
• 1 Huge Zucchini, (seeded, shredded, drain then blended smooth).
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 4 Tbsp of Coconut Oil or Butter
• 3/4 cup of Cocoa Powder
• 1/2 cup fresh raspberries (opt.)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In your food processor, pulverize coconut until almost a butter. Add this and the rest of the ingredients except the egg whites to your food processor or a stand mixer and mix everything together. 
2. Finally, in a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and gently fold into the rest of the batter. Some streaks may remain. 
3. Grease three 9"  pie pans with butter and line with circles of parchment paper. Evenly divide the batter between them. 
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
5. Carefully remove cakes to a cooling rack until cool. (You may want to refrigerate it, or put it into the freezer to speed up the process and help it firm up.)
6. Frost with chocolate buttercream icing and top with fresh raspberries if desired.

Chocolate Buttercream Icing

Ingredients

• 1-2 cups of Coconut Palm Sugar (Ground to a fine powder)*
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 2 1/4 cups of Coconut Oil and/or Butter
• 1/4 cup of Cocoa Powder (Or more for a darker chocolate.)
• A dash of salt (if your butter is unsalted)

Instructions

1. Whisk together sugar and cocoa until well blended. Then add to wet ingredients and whip until fluffy.
2. If the consistency is too runny, chill for 10-15 minutes then whip again. 
3. Be sure the cake is well cooled before you ice it.

* I usually grind my coconut sugar in my mini food processor to reduce it's gritty texture in certain recipes like frosting. Because of this, 1 cup of sugar may reduce down to a bit less than 1 cup, so you might want to add a bit more than a cup. Also, a lot of people who use coconut sugar find it to be slightly less sweet than cane sugar so they may wish to increase the amount regardless. I would recommend using up to two cups if you want the icing very sweet, but do not go beyond that.  We tried two cups and it was extremely rich. Luckily the milder sweetness of the dark chocolate cake helped counterbalance that and the fresh raspberries added a refreshing contrast of tartness. 

The Birthday Girl really loved the cake! She kept asking for more and more. I have to admit it was pretty amazing, even if I do say so myself. 

This cake is super moist, (almost like a fudgey pudding) even after draining the zucchini as much as I had patience for. I could have drained it longer, but I wanted  to get the cake finished before bedtime. :)
Anyway, it really doesn't need frosting, and as I noted above the frosting was super rich. It was almost too much, so I would recommend reducing the sugar a bit if you use the icing, or maybe at least add some cream cheese. (We would have done that if we'd had any.)

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this delectable recipe! I'd love to hear about what you thought if you try it, and seeing pictures would be great! I was so happy this recipe looked almost as pretty as it tasted because my last flourless cake was a bit less than photogenic and I really wanted a pretty cake to film for one of my upcoming music videos. Stay tuned and you might just see this cake in action!

~Julie :}

What I Ate: 05-05-12

Sadly I have nothing amazing to show for cinco de mayo this past Spring, in fact I probably forgot about it since my daughter's birthday is the day before.

As such I had made my funny little five year old a special (and as healthy as possible) birthday cake for her fifth year celebration. I used a recipe called Hummingbird cake I found on Pinterest, which I decorated with dried pineapple flowers and edible pansies (and a plastic Tinkerbell of course.) I'll try to post some pictures up here soon so I can link to it.

Anyway, in the recipe online the blogger wrote about how the frosting turned out sparse so of course I doubled the recipe and the result was that I had about a cup of frosting leftover even after generously frosting the cake. So the next day I was looking at that extra frosting, trying to decide how best to use it and I recalled a blog I had read not to long before that in which an adorable expectant mother was always craving apple slices dipped in cream cheese frosting. I had apples on hand so I figured I might as well try it. 

It was pretty good, though my frosting was a little thick to make dipping very possible. I still think that caramel or peanut butter are a bit better. Of course the girl from the blog might have been using store bought frosting which would have tasted differently and was probably much softer. 

(No I did not eat all of that frosting in one day, or with apples--though I think I tried it one more time--it lasted weeks and I had to find other creative uses for it.)

I think I should note, when I made the hummingbird cake it was really good, but I had (or chose, in some cases) to make some substitutions. For example, I replaced the sugar with raw honey instead. I didn't have any pecans (sadly) so I put flake coconut in the frosting and I substituted part of the flour for oatmeal instead. My father-in-law who makes amazing cakes said he really liked the oatmeal in it, although he didn't know what it was at first. 

Julie Surprise: Zinger Cake

Back in August a friend of ours was having a birthday, but she also was going through a hard time so we (my sister and my husband and I) sort of temporarily adopted her and therefore, we felt responsible for making sure she had a Happy Birthday, since it seemed that no one else was really going to trouble themselves about it.

She suspected this though and forbade me from baking her a cake. I found my way around that though. By paying attention to things that she said I became privy to the fact that she loves chocolate Zingers. Hence, my brilliant idea!I constructed rather than baked this Birthday cake for her.

I started out by making a cardboard circle for the base which I covered in foil. Then I figured out the circumference of the ring I needed to make a good sized cake base against/around which the Zingers could stand side by side without to any gaps. This took some trial and error and I practiced with the still individually wrapped Zingers before I got it right. Once it was right I covered that in foil as well and then began the balancing of the (now unwrapped) Zingers.
I created two rings of Zingers; an outside ring and an inside ring, and then secured them with a nice pink ribbon tied up into a bow.
To finish it off I made a simple chocolate glaze and drizzled that over the top to hide the edge of the foil ring.

Once we presented the cake to the Birthday girl I was able to inquire whether or not she liked coconut and upon receiving the answer in the affirmative; garnished the glaze with some shredded coconut before I put the candles on. (As you see above.)

It wasn't amazing in any gourmet type way (considering it tasted like Hostess Zingers) but creatively speaking, I was rather proud of it.

Julie's Surprise Chocolate Mint Cake

My Mother's Birthday is on St. Patrick's Day. As a result of this she has been doomed to have green (or sometimes rainbow) Birthday cakes for most of her life.

However, I personally think that it's rather fun. There are many foods and flavors that can be green, and there's always green food coloring which can make non-green associated flavors green. I just think it makes a fun Birth date because the creative possibilities for cakes are actually endless . . . At least, in my opinion.

I have had many fond memories from when I was a little girl, of planning or seeing my older sister's plan cakes for my Mom. One year she had a big heart shaped layer cake with a rainbow of frosting that ended with a crock of those metallic gold ball sprinkles that happen to be edible. And of course she's had many green frosted cakes. I think part of the excitement was due to the fact that this was one time during the year when we got to design a cake, because for other people's birthday's my Mom usually made the cake.

When I was about 12-14 or so, I once made my mom a scenic bundt cake. It was inspired by the song/poem All Things Bright And Beautiful, because I knew my mom liked that song. It had blue sky frosting at the top and down the center, then around the top edge where 'purple headed mountains', and beneath those I painted (with frosting) a river rushing by, and trees and flowers and I believe I also had a sunrise/sunset on one side peeping between the mountains. I really need to find a picture of that since I'm pretty sure we took one. Anyway, I honestly think that was the last time I got to make my Mom's cake until now.

There are many cooks in my family, and as such for many years now they have usually volunteered to make my Mother's cake, but this year I thought of it about a week in advance and immediately called my Dad to ask if anyone had volunteered to make it yet. Lucky for me no one had. I had all kinds of crazy ideas on how to make a delectable and snazzy looking lime flavored green cake, but because it was her Birthday, I asked my mom what she thought about a lime cake and her response was, "You can make me a chocolate cake with mint frosting." This was her way of saying, 'I know I'm doomed to have green, but please, no lime.'

I was a bit disappointed, but creative possibilities still lay before me so I began concocting my plans. The following is what I came up with.

Yes, Andes candies helped to inspire me, as well as a bar cookie recipe of my Mother's: Mint Parfait Bars.

I decided to bake a chocolate devils food cake. When there were about 10 minutes left to the baking time, I washed a non-stick saucepan and began unwrapping Andes thin mints and began putting them in the pan on the stove. I had not yet turned on the heat, but because I'd just washed it the pan was still warm and also the oven makes the stove above it rather warm as well so right away the candies started melting.
I continued to fill the pan with chocolate and the it continued to melt. I'm not sure if electric ovens make that much heat on the stove above but my gas one does anyway.

Finally the cake was done, but I first had to let it cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan, so I probably could have waited to unwrapped the chocolates till the cake came out of the oven. Once it was cool I put a wire rack over the pan and flipped it over. Having used Pam baking spray, the cake came out beautifully onto the rack, which I then set on the table over a large sheet of wax paper.
The chocolate was pretty much all melted by then, so I just stirred it a bit. Jake took some pictures for me so I could show the chocolaty smoothness of it. (And like I said before, I hadn't even turned on the stove yet.)
Then it was time to coat the cake!

I was pretty generous with my first application of chocolate. But I soon realized I might need to be more careful with my second coating.
Here is the wax paper after the first coat. I thought it was kind of cool one of the puddles looks like a heart. I figured we could just let these harden and eat them later. (I've eaten quite a few while blogging this)
This is after my second coat. I had to do this one a lot more slowly, and it was a bit more tedious to try and get the chocolate to cover the sides and bottom edge more. But I did it.
You can tell by my second wax paper sheet the difference in how I applied the chocolate.
Then I managed to make room in my freezer so the chocolate could harden faster and be easier to frost.
After about 20 minutes or so I pulled it out and it looked like this! A giant chocolate doughnut in a minty chocolate shell. I washed my hands and then rinse them in cold water and dried them, then with my cold dry hands I quickly transferred the chocolaty cake form the rack to a nice glass platter.
All ready to frost now.
Personally, I probably would have been happy to eat it like this, but since my mom was expecting mint frosting, I figured this chocolate shell hidden under the icing could be the surprise in my 'Julie Surprise.'
So then I mixed up my "Icing."

I actually used the filling recipe from my Mom's Mint Parfait Bars.
Here's the recipe for it:

Filling (or in this case Icing)

1 envelope or one tablespoon unflavored gelatin.
1/4 cup boiling water
4 cups powdered sugar
3/4 cup softened butter
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
2-3 drops green food coloring.

Dissolve gelatin in the boiling water; cool. In large mixing bowl combine gelatin and 2 cups powdered sugar. Add butter, peppermint extract and food coloring; beat 1 minute at medium speed or until smooth and creamy. Blend in remaining 2 cups of powdered sugar until smooth.

Jake helped me with some of the ingredients and as such he decided there wasn't much difference between 3/4 of a cup of butter and a whole cup, so we ended up with an extra 1/4 cup of butter in there. As my brother would put it . . .

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 Anyway, it was a lot more moist than I expected it to be, but at least that made it easier to spread over my cake. (Though I'm sure the hard chocolate shell helped too.) Ready to Start Frosting Pictures here are courtesy of my husband, Jacob.
Almost done. Lilly is intrigued.
She is, Finito!
To top it off, (literally) I sprinkled some Andes brand mint chips over the top.
Tada!