Welcome to my Blog!


I am so glad you stopped by. A couple of months ago I saw the movie Julie & Julia, where a young woman decides to take a year and make every recipe in Julia Child's French Cookbook. I enjoyed the movie very much and became intrigued. Maybe I could do something like that, so, I got out my barely used, 13 year old, Better Homes Cookbook and started flipping through. Thus began my cooking experiment.

Cooking is something I have always hated to do, it was a chore for me, not a pleasure. I am not a professional cook, and never will be, but the movie ignited a spark in me and revealed a new discovery, cooking can be fun!

I am learning that with patience, motivation, and good recipes anyone can be a good cook. Believe me, if I can do it, so can you! I hope you will experiment along with me and let me know what you think of the recipes I share.

I will post each new recipe I try along with a picture (I can't stand cookbooks that don't include pictures!) so you can see the final product. I will also share tips that I have learned along the way. For you seasoned chefs, the tips may seem like common sense, but for those of us who are dummies in the kitchen, they are epiphanies.

Happy Cooking!

Nancy

Friday, September 24, 2010

Chocolate Zucchini Cake


I am still not sure why we would want to put zucchini into a chocolate cake, except perhaps to hide vegetables from children, but this cake was very good.  You would never have known there was zucchini in it.

I did make a mistake, I did not have chocolate chips, so I put caramels on top.  Not a good substitution, the caramel just got hard and sticky.  If you try this, stick with chocolate chips!

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups sifted all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 cups grated unpeeled zucchini (about 2 1/2 medium)
1 6 oz. package semi-sweet chocolate chips (about 1 cup)
3/4 cups chopped walnuts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325*.  Butter and flour 13x9x2 inch baking pan.  Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl.  Beat sugar, butter, and oil in large bowl until blended.  Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat in vanilla.  Mix in flour mixture alternately with buttermilk in 3 additions each.  Mix in grated zucchini.  Pour batter into prepared pan.  Sprinkle chocolate chips and nuts over.

Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 50 minutes.  Cool cake completely in pan.

The Bon Appetit Cookbook

No comments:

Post a Comment

Disclaimer:


None of the recipes posted on this site are mine, they are all taken from other sources, or given to me to try. I am not nearly creative enough or good enough in the kitchen to have come up with any of them.

I also cannot promise that any of these recipes are going to turn out good, or taste good for that matter, so you try them at your own risk.

Enjoy!!! Nancy
SmileyCentral.com