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: 09-04-12

Pear Pudding

We have been abundantly blessed with lots of fruits and veggies from friends and family lately. Especially pears. I simply adore pears! Lucky for me, my mother-in-law isn't a huge fan, but her mother-in-law who happens to live next door, has a pear tree so the two huge buckets of pears that ended up in my in-law's garage ultimately ended up in my tummy, for the most part. :}

Of the last installment that we acquired from them, a few of them were really, really ripe, so I knew I'd need to use these ones immediately rather then eat them at my leisure, so I started searching around on Pinterest on Tuesday for a nice, doable pear recipe.
My first thought was pear butter, but in the end, I didn't really have everything I needed for that so I kept looking and managed to find this simple Pear Pudding recipe on Foodnetwork.com.  They didn't have a picture so after pinning the recipe I determined that if it turned out at all that I would post a picture here to add to my pin.

First time I ever made a recipe that called for a water bath. Oo la la! Fancy!

I changed the recipe a tad by substituting the sugar for raw honey. Also,1 teaspoon of cinnamon seemed like a lot. I wanted it to taste more like pear than cinnamon so I only added a dash or two. I also didn't have a lemon, but I did have a fresh lime so I substituted lime zest for lemon. I did use organic butter on the pan, though mine was salted instead of unsalted. I honestly never buy unsalted, and I've never had a problem with stuff turning out too salty. The last change I made was that I didn't have any breadcrumbs (sounded kinda gross to me anyway) so I crushed up the last of the health food store graham crackers that I'd purchased for our camping trip last weekend (for healthy-ish s'mores.)

 Anyway, it seems like it turned out okay. It never really set up to be very thick. Perhaps I should have baked it longer than recommended. It was quite golden around the edges though. It would have been nice if the recipe had mentioned whether or not I should test it with a knife or something. It said 'serve cool or chilled' so I chilled it for almost an hour thinking maybe that would help it thicken. Of course, the whole reason it was still a bit runny could have been due to the fact that I used honey instead of sugar. 
At any rate. It was deee-licious!

Sweet and kinda rich but sort of light at the same time. The taste was just so perfectly balanced, it's hard to describe. I loved the pear flavor and I do not regret cutting back on the cinnamon at all. Not that I have anything against cinnamon, and maybe if I do this again I'll try the full amount, but I just wasn't in the mood for a cinnamon dessert. I wanted a fresher, fruitier flavored dessert. And that's exactly what I got. Yay!