that’ll teach me for doubting my mother

In an email from my Mom, she instructed me that she had a zucchini and some carrots in her fridge if I want them while she’s in Minnesota taking care of my Uncle. While making my grocery list I thought, mental note. Lynn has a zucchini. So only buy one instead of two for the meatloaf and use Mom’s.

Today after yoga I went to my Mom’s house to take out the garbage and recycling and took a gander in her fridge.

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, there sat the zucchini.

I mean, look at the thing! It’s half the size of Claire! I’m not impressed easily, but dang, my jaw dropped.

Well. Now I’ve got a shit-ton of zucchini. Just last week I made the most amazing zucchini bread ever. Been there, done that. What now? Google!

I typed in: what the hell do I do with all this zucchini, clicked I’m feeling lucky and was lead to chocolate cake.

A little while after that, I got into a g-chat conversation with Katie Ett, telling her my tale of zucchini woe and she recommended a link of a blogging friend of hers called The Daily Dish.

Bam. Now I have things to do with my zucchini.

(Plus, it’s Fantasy Football Draft Night and Matt won’t be home until after 7. That means I can make a complete mess of the kitchen without hearing sighs in the background.)

(By the way, they needed another warm body for it, so team Nurse Pain has been registered and I’m hoping that I don’t get screwed in the draft tonight. I’m allowing the boys to basically pick for me since I’m short my Mom the babysitter. I told them that I’m a nurse, and because of that  I already have a seat in heaven and they best treat me good.)

(Bluz, I’m counting on you to help me out.)

(Oh god what have I signed up for.)

Anywho. Back to cakes and cookies. I’m baking them. They smell delicious. And while I’m seriously not trying to turn this into a food blog, who are we kidding? I’m a 90% stay at home mom. I cook. I bake. I clean. I’m a cliche. So sue me.

And I do it all while feeding Mae yogurt. Just call me Super Mom.

Eat this cake:

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup applesauce
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup milk (I used 1%)
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
4 tablespoon cocoa
1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini
3/4 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.

In a large bowl or stand mixer, beat applesauce and sugar until well mixed. Add in the  eggs, vanilla and milk and continue to mix well. Meanwhile, mix all the dry ingredients together.

Slowly incorporate dry ingredients to wet in stand mixer. Then add the zucchini. Lastly stir in the chocolate chips.

I made mine in a bundt pan. This requires an hour of baking. If you decide to make this into a sheet cake, bake at 325 for 45 minutes. You can also turn these into muffins if you so desire. If you do, then bake them at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

For the Glaze, I use Joy the Baker’s:

6 ounces unsweetened chocolate
3/4 cup unsalted butter
3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup sour cream, at room temperature
1/4 cup brewed coffee, cooled

Chop the chocolate into small pieces, put them in a heatproof bowl (or a double boiler), and set the bowl over a pot of barely simmering water.  Be sure that the bottom of the bowl does not touch the boiling water.  Remove the bowl from the heat when all of the chocolate bits have melted.

Melt the butter in a separate pan or in the microwave.  Whisk the melted butter into the melted chocolate until thoroughly incorporated.  Sift in half of the powdered sugar.  Add the sour cream and whisk to combine.  Sift in the remaining powdered sugar and whisk until smooth.  The glaze should be thick and shiny.  Lastly, add the coffee and whisk to create a glossy glaze.

Pour the glaze over the Bundt cake, covering it completely.

…Don’t worry. This is totally healthy. Cocoa, zucchini, milk…you’re fine.

Oh, and here’s the final product. It was in the oven still when I published this. And for the record, it’s awesome.

Just ignore the chunk missing out of the top on the right, that’s from me taking it out of the pan too soon. And gosh darnit, I had to eat that piece.