Cook up zucchinis in scrumptious cake

You all have been very generous with your zucchini bread and cake recipes. It is an interesting lot. I heard from 11 of you and have six unique recipes, since one of those was repeated four times. I plan to do two weeks of recipes because as it turns out, one of the sorts is really a very rich cake, and the others are more sweet-bread versions; somehow I will have to pick one of these. Don’t ask me how.

The cake version was a no-brainer in the taste test we had at our house. It was almost unfair to put it up against the zucchini chocolate bread I also made; an apples-and-oranges comparison springs to mind.

Ethel Pochocki of Brooks and Iris Brown of Baileyville sent along Deep Dark Chocolate Zucchini Cake. I ought to have known right from the name of the recipe that this was a different bird. Both ladies think it may have been in this paper a few years ago; my apologies in advance to any unacknowledged co-writer.

At any event, one great virtue of this cake is that it uses three cups of grated zucchini. We are still getting zucchini in our garden and I trust you are, too. I am not exactly tired of eating zucchini yet, but I’m willing to sacrifice a vegetable to dessert with a cake like this to dump it into. I used milk soured with a teaspoon or so of vinegar.

I made the cake in a tube pan, but you can do it in layer pans, a 9-by-13-inch pan, or even loaf pans. It doesn’t need icing, but I sprinkled confectioner’s sugar on it because it is prettier that way.

Send queries or answers to Sandy Oliver, 1061 Main Road, Islesboro 04848. E-mail: tastebuds@prexar.com. For recipes, tell us where they came from. List ingredients, specify number of servings and do not abbreviate measurements. Include name, address and daytime phone number.

Deep Dark Chocolate Zucchini Cake

4 one-ounce squares unsweetened baking chocolate

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 cups flour

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter

2 cups sugar

3 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/3 sour milk or butter milk

3 cups grated zucchini

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease and flour your baking pan. Melt the baking chocolate with the vegetable oil. Sift together all the dry ingredients, flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, and salt and set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar together, and beat in the eggs, then add the chocolate and oil mixture. Add the dry ingredients and soured milk and when they are combined, fold in the zucchini. Put into the baking pan(s). If you make layer cakes, bake for 40 minutes or until a tester inserted comes out clean. If you bake in a tube pan, bake for an hour and a quarter or until the tester comes out clean.