Zucchini (Courgette) Chocolate Cake

Another crappy weather day in paradise.

I had some zucchini sitting in the fridge and I remembered a cake I used to make years ago. After searching through my cookbooks I found the recipe. I know you are all thinking eeeeeew that sounds pretty revolting, but if you think how yummy carrot cake is, this is just as good.  Yes, you can see the odd bit of green in amongst the chocolate cake, but you definitely can't taste it, so I'm not sure whether discerning children would eat it when they see the flecks of green, unless you can come up with a really good explanation of why it has green bits in it.  It is unusual, but a very moist and flavourful cake.

There are no decent photos of the cake, see the big hollow in the middle. I have been trying baking cakes using White Wings gluten free flour.  White Wings says that you can substitute this flour for normal flour in baking, sauces etc.  You can, but each time I have substituted it has changed the cake, and this time it was beautifully moist, tasted fabulous, but it sunk in the middle and fell apart when I tried to put it on a serving plate. I gave up trying to make the ganache look good, when the cake was disintegrating under it. See below, and this is after I had salvaged it.

I do recommend this recipe, but make it with normal wheat flour and it won't look like this when it is out of the oven.

I don't know why the cake looks a different colour in the above photo, I didn't notice it until I loaded it onto the post, and I am way too lazy too get out the camera again, take a photo, load it onto the computer etc.



Zucchini Chocolate Cake

125g butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup yoghurt
1/4 cup cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp mixed spice ( I didn't use this as I didn't have any)
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups grated zucchini (approx 350g - 12 oz)

Prepare a 25 cm square pan (10") by lining it with 2 cross wise strips of baking paper. Beat the butter with the sugars until light and creamy. Add eggs one at a time, with a spoonful of the measured flour to prevent the mixture curdling. Add the vanilla and yoghurt and mix well. (It curdled at this stage anyway!!!!)

Sift dry ingredients together. Stir in with the grated zucchini. Turn into prepared pan. Cook at 170C (340F) for 45 mins or until centre feels firm and a skewer comes out clean.

You can put 1/2 to 1 cup of chocolate pieces in the batter before cooking, if you want to up the chocolate, I didn't have enough as I wanted to use it for the icing, but I must admit it is fabulous with the extra chocolate. However, without the extra chocolate it is still very very nice.  I iced it with a dark chocolate ganache.


The recipe is from a New Zealand cookbook -  The Best of Home Cooking by Alison Holst.

Ta dah!!

Today I finished the top of the hearts quilt, not without a bit lot of unpicking.  I tried very hard to have all the seams butting up and as I haven't made a quilt for a very long time, it was not as easy as I thought I remembered.  It's finally finished, and it's not that big. This is the pattern I used, but I made it 7 x 7 squares, the original is 6 x 6 squares.

I love this square below with the bird, it's so cute.

Now for the quilting, I am sooooo looking forward to that...........not really, but at least it's not too big and I will just be sewing in the ditch and then around the edge of the hearts.

Monday

Unlike some other people, I had a very uneventful and quiet weekend. I saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D, good movie, but certainly not for little kids, very Tim Burton!!!

I did as much as I could on my hearts quilt, I am waiting for a delivery, for the rest of the fabric. Fingers crossed it arrives tomorrow. It is now in the WIP pile, along with the Japanese fabric quilt that I am too scared to start appliquéing yet. Pathetic, I know.  I also finished quite a few more squares on my throw. I now have about 25 sewn together and another 20 or so loose. I only need to make another 300 or so!!!!  I think it might end up being a very small throw.  Unfortunately everything I am making at the moment is not something that can be finished in a day or two.  Rather than showing endless photos of the same thing each week, I thought I would share some more things growing in my garden.

Banksia

Ginger - it has a beautiful scent

Heliconia

Hibiscus - actually it is my next door neighbour's but is growing over my fence.

Some weird fungi

Medinilla

Bromeliad- it will be completely vivid pink in a few weeks.

Cordyline - how about that for coloured leaves!!!

And finally, in my entry area

Orchid

These had been put out in the garden after they flowered last year, neglected, I found them last week and brought them inside. SO pretty.

I live on 3 acres so all these flowers and plants are not right next to each other. I love colour, but not that much.

My new baby

I bought one of these. Now there are probably some people out there saying, Nooooooooooooooooo. However...................... I spent a lot of time researching machines, and as I already had a Pfaff, and these have been out for almost 2 yrs now,  and they seem to have ironed out all of the problems, ........ and I couldn't resist a  very good deal, I bought one.

I tried the Bernina 440 and disliked it. I think you need to have a Bernina as your first sewing machine, as I found everything about it really fiddly and considering it is supposed to be a quilting machine I couldn't believe the throat was so small, compared to everything else I looked at.  If I had lots and lots of money I would have bought the Bernina 820, (now that is a beautiful machine, seriously fabulous), but I don't and I would never be able to justify spending that kind of money on a machine.

I brought my baby home this afternoon, and have been trying it out.  So far so good, I am enjoying using it, like everything that is new, it is taking a bit of getting used to, it is a little different to my old Pfaff, but all in all, I am enjoying it. Can't wait to produce something with it!!!!!!!!

This week since Monday we have had 292mm of rain. That is 11 1/2 inches.  Yes, this is not a typo, 11 1/2 inches since the 1st of March.  Apparently by the 2nd of March we had broken the March record for rainfall. Maybe that will give you some idea of why I called my blog Sunshine? Paradise?.  This is the Sunshine Coast and we are supposed to have sunshine.  The weather the last few years has been at extremes. We are either in drought or floods. 

I found this photo here, but it kind of shows you how heavy the rain has been and we haven't even had a storm. Imagine that kind of rain on and off for 5 days, and without the sunshine in between.

However, I am glad that we haven't had the freezing cold, snow weather of the northern hemisphere, so I will stop whingeing now.

Hearts

Another rainy day, and I started on a new quilt. I am using a couple of charm packs of Blush, Basic Grey for Moda.

The other one I was working on has gone into the cupboard as a UFO until I can figure out what to do about the applique.

Outside, the dam is extremely muddy and overflowing, and the rain and wind continue.

Caramel Banana Cake

Today was another rainy day in paradise. A day for staying at home and cooking, quilting, crocheting.

I had a couple of bananas that were very over ripe so pulled out the trusty Australian Women's Weekly Cakes and Slices Cookbook. The recipe is Caramel Banana Cake and it is scrumptious.

Caramel Banana Cake
180deg oven (350F)

125g butter
3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
2 eggs
1 cup mashed banana
1 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 tspn bicarbonate of soda
3/4 cup sour cream
1 tblspn milk

Grease a 14cm x 21cm loaf pan. (approx 5 1/2" x 8") I think!

Cream butter and sugar in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy, beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat until combined.
Transfer mixture to a large bowl, stir in banana. Stir in half the sifted dry ingredients with half the combined sour cream and milk then stir in remaining dry ingredients and sour cream mixture. Stir until smooth. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Bake in moderate oven for about 1 hour, stand 5 mins before turning on to wire rack to cool. When cold, spread with icing.

Caramel Icing

60g butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tblspns sour cream
1 1/2 cups icing sugar

Melt butter and sugar in saucepan, stir constantly over heat without boiling for 2 mins. Add sour cream, bring to the boil, remove from heat, stir in sifted icing sugar.

Keeping time for cake 4 days.

I used gluten free plain flour and baking powder in this cake, just to try it, it didn't rise as much as "normal" flour, but it was still really yummy.

Another not very productive day (I hope this isn't catching)

Today was the day when I was going to sit down and calmly try to woo my sewing machine into sewing free motion for me. Notice the word - was.  After procrastinating for an hour or so, looking at it out of the corner of my eye, and procrastinating a bit more, I finally worked up the courage to sit down and work through all the steps that lovely Moira had suggested to me to try and get it doing it's thing. Thanks for all the tips.  Although I didn't resort to the gin and tonic as it was still only 10am, if it was 11am I might have.(I do have some standards)!!!!!! 

 I don't know why I bothered, aaaargghhhhhh.  I was calm, composed, didn't throw it off the table in a fit of rage. 

I tried, I really tried. 

Every time I started, it would stitch a few stitches, I would start to feel confident and then.......it would jam.  I tried sewing straight stitch with feed dogs engaged and normal foot on, it was still sewing perfectly OK. Well sort of it, it is starting to make a slight groaning sound now, which it wasn't before, but otherwise the stitches were coming out fine, the tension was fine, BUT,

 I think it is coming to the end of it's life.

It has been a very trusty sewing machine, I have had it for, umm, err, if I tell you how long I have had it, you will be saying ....... oh my god are you THAT old.  Let's just say it's old, and I bought it brand new when I was in primary school, cough cough.  It is a Pfaff 1471, it was amazing at the time, it is electronic and does did lots of amazing things, like dual feed, a flashing warning light to let you know when the bobbin thread was running low, a thread cutter, all sorts of fancy things I did use, and fancy schmansy stitches which I never used. I am feeling very sad, I suppose I could try to get it fixed but considering it's age and it wasn't that long ago I last had it serviced, I think it has come to the end of it's life. The main reason I am feeling sad is that I just checked out a few machines and I thought it would be like TV's, you know when they first bring out new models they cost the earth but soon enough they drop in price.  As mine is so old I thought all the things that are on my machine would be all the basic stuff that is on every machine, but no, I was sadly mistaken. To have these features on a new machine I have to buy the top of the range. So now, I am asking anybody who knows anything about sewing machines, what they would recommend.  I will probably get terribly confused, but it might just help me in deciding what to do, and I know I will have to shell out a small fortune for a good machine.

So until I buy a new machine I will have to fold up my quilt that I have been working on, (the first quilt I have made in 5 years) as I really really want to applique with free motion, and start on another quilt, knowing I can still piece it together, just can't do anything fancy.  I know it is a real hardship, but I am sure I will survive.

*A gratuitous photo to cheer me up, not to brag about my holidays!

This is where I would rather be today, Plantation Island, Fiji lying on that hammock outside our bure. This is a photo from our holiday in Sept 08.

The weather is crappity crap, so far in the last 36 hours we have had 72mls (almost 3") of rain, and more to come.... it's the Sunshine Coast.....NOT!!!!!!!