Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Really I should have posted this earlier when zucchini was in abundance. I feel like the crop is dwindling at this point.

If you do have a massive zucchini kicking around and you aren't sure what to do with it, make this. Make this for your friends. Make this for your coworkers. People love this cake.

I brought this over to another couple's house for a dinner. I should have just said it was a chocolate bundt cake because the husband wasn't so sure about eating a cake with zucchini in it. He ate it. He enjoyed it. But I think he was a little freaked that it had a vegetable in it. That is what makes it healthy! DUH!

Chocolate Zucchini Cake
Source: The Food Librarian
Yield: 12 servings

2 1/2 cups regular all-purpose flour, unsifted
1/2 cup cocoa
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup soft butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
2 cups coarsely shredded zucchini
1/2 cup milk
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
Glaze (directions follow)

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, soda, salt, and cinnamon; set aside.

With a mixer, beat together the butter and the sugar until they are smoothly blended. Add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture one at a time, beating well after each addition. With a spoon, stir in the vanilla, orange peel, and zucchini.

Alternately stir the dry ingredients and the milk into the zucchini mixture, including the nuts with the last addition.

Pour the batter into a greased and flour-dusted 10-inch tube pan or bundt pan. Bake in the oven for about 50 minutes (test at 45 minutes!) or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan 15 minutes; turn out on wire rack to cool thoroughly.

Drizzle glaze over cake.

Glaze: Mix together 2 cups powdered sugar, 3 Tablespoons milk, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until smooth.

Cut in thin slices to serve.