Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cake

During the summer months, I grow a lot of squash, and as the leaves on the vines get bigger, sometimes one ends up with monster squash that managed to hide themselves under the leaves until they reached gargantuan size and girth.  While these monsters may look impressive (or scary, depending on your perspective) they are not usually the best for eating.  So what I do is peel them, coarse-grate them, and freeze them for later use in things you might not normally expect.  My other option is to leave them on the passenger seat of my neighbors' cars, but since most folks have started locking their car doors that is no longer a good option, sadly, because it was fun while I was doing it.


Anyway, my favorite purpose for zucchini monsters is chocolate chip zucchini cake.  It's moist, feels a lot richer than it is, and does not, I assure you, have even a hint of zucchini taste in it. This means you can serve your kids some zukes and they'll never know it.  

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/4 cup white sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1 egg

1 1/2 cup vegetable oil (I use canola)

1/2 bag chocolate chips

3 cups grated zucchini (if frozen, this will seem like less after you strain off water, but that's OK.  You can also add more if you like -- I double the amount when using frozen and squeezed zucchini as opposed to fresh)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.  In a medium bowl, stir together wet ingredients -- eggs, oil, and zucchini.  Add cocoa powder and sugar and stir in well.  Add flour, baking soda and powder, and chocolate chips last.

Fold into baking pan and bake for 50 - 60 minutes, using toothpick to test doneness.  Let cool and serve.