Courgette cake ehhh….yes you heard right, it has courgette in. Using vegetables in cakes are very on trend at the moment. I’ve seen a lot of recipes for courgette cake for a while so it isn’t something new. It was actually my dad who gave me the push to make this cake, which is quite odd, he’s not into anything sweet. I always make carrot cakes, that’s what I’m known for. I have also made a chocolate beetroot cake too. I think I have caught a bug for making vegetable cakes lately, well at least I’m being healthy right? using a vegetable in your cake is one of your five a day!…that’s what I keep telling myself. The good thing about using vegetables or fruit in your cake is they turn out really moist.
I was sceptical about this cake, as courgettes are not naturally sweet I thought this cake won’t be sweet enough for me, I wasn’t sure if adding extra sugar would change the cake texture. I thought instead of risking it, I will stick to the original recipe. I used the recipe I use for carrot cake and replaced the carrots with courgettes.
Once I got to try the cake, I realised I was right. The cake itself wasn’t sweet enough for me, although the cream cheese icing was. I still preferred the cake to be sweet enough. I took the cake to work and asked everyone else’s opinion, most people did think it was sweet enough as the icing was sweet. Hmmm…I would prefer a sweeter cake and subtle sweet icing. As far as the cakes texture goes, it was moist and was just like the carrot cake. This one doesn’t look as appealing as you can’t see much colour, with the carrot cake you can see specks of orange throughout the cake.
I want to try chocolate courgette cake next…watch this space!
- 175g - light muscovado sugar
- 175ml - sunflower oil
- 3 - large eggs lightly beaten
- 140g - grated courgettes
- hand full - sultanas
- 175g - self-raising flour
- 1 tsp - bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tsp - ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp - mixed spice
- 40g - cubed soft butter
- 200g - cream cheese
- 1/4 - lemon juice
- 1/2 cup - icing sugar to taste - may need less
- 1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease two 7" tins.
- 2. In a stand mixer tip the sugar, oil and add the eggs, mix until combined. Stir in the grated courgettes and sultanas.
- 3. In a medium bowl sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices and then mix. Add this to the another bowl and stir until combined.
- 4. Pour the cake tins and bake for 25-30 minutes, until it feels firm and springy when you press it in the centre. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn it out, peel off the paper and cool on a wire rack.
- 1. In a stand mixer on a slow speed beat together the icing sugar and butter until smooth. Add the cream cheese and lemon and mix until smooth.
