I had lots of courgettes in the fridge and thought why not use it for baking. I must admit, that i haven’t really used vegetables in baking as i think it is strange! But i have seen alot of recipes ie beetroots, carrots etc and interested in how the bake would turn out.
I love looking at recipes in the book and i found a recipe called Pistachio and Lime Courgette Cake in Martha Collison’s Twist book (page 74) and decided to give it a go! I have baked a loaf cake with courgettes and lemons from Lorraine Pascale’s books and it turned out really tasty! You wouldn’t think courgettes can be used in a cake but it is actually really nice as it keeps the cake really moist!
For this cake, i really think the icing makes the cake delicious as it brings a nice sweetness to it as the limes are quite a subtle taste. You don’t need too many ingredients to make this cake and i didn’t use 250g icing sugar, probably around 150g is sweet enough!
The boys enjoyed baking it but when it came to eating it, they didn’t like the ‘green’ bits inside the sponge!! lol! The cake was really yummy!
Ingredients: Cake – Butter for greasing, 250g courgettes (2-3 small ones), 2 x eggs, 125ml vegetable oil, 150g caster sugar, 225g self raising flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 salt and zest of half a lime. I always add 1 tsp of vanilla extract into the cake mixture.
Icing – 100g full fat cream cheese, 150g or 250g icing sugar, zest and juice of half a lime, 30g chopped pistachio nuts.
Method: Preheat oven to GM4, grease a 20cm tin and line with baking paper. Grate the courgettes coarsely, don’t do it too finely as it will go mushy! Try and squeeze out the water from the courgettes or otherwise the cake would be really soggy. I have read in the past that you can put the courgettes in a table cloth and squeeze out the water. As it is quite a small amount, i just used my hands to squeeze the water out.
Put the eggs, sugar, old and in a bowl and beat until creamy. Fold in the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir the courgettes and zest. The mixture will look quite dense like and not like a cake mixture! Pour the mixture into a tin and bake for 35-40 mins until golden on top and firm to touch. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin before decorating.
Make the icing by beating the cream cheese, icing sugar, lime juice together until smooth. Spread on top of the cooled cake and the sprinkle the pistachio nuts on top and the left over lime zest.
Aunty G's Kitchen 