Chocolate Courgette Cake

Chocolate Courgette Cake

Ok so once again these cakes are not going to win any prizes for their looks, lets face it presentation is not my strong point! but these courgette cakes have a very subtle flavour neither the cocoa or courgette blow your mind they just work together to form a really moist cake and for me baking is all about the taste!

Ingredients

1 medium courgette (about 200g), peeled

150g unsalted butter 
150g light soft brown sugar 
1 tsp vanilla extract 
2 tbsp cocoa powder 
2 free range eggs 
250g self raising flour 
1 tbsp baking powder 
2 tbsp milk

For the Icing

150g icing sugar 
1 tbsp cocoa powder 
2 tbsp milk 

Method

• Preheat the oven to 160°C then finely grate your courgette. 

• In a separate bowl beat together the butter, sugar, vanilla and cocoa until light and fluffy. 

• Gradually add the eggs with a little of the flour and beat well.

• Add the baking powder to the rest of the flour, then add to the butter mix along with the courgette and milk. Mix everything together.

•  Divide between 18-20 paper cases and bake for 15-20 mins until cooked through.

• Mix the icing sugar, cocoa and milk to a smooth paste and spoon a little over each cooled cake.

Coffee Cake

Coffee Cake

This is another recipe which I have taken from my Mum's collection (Thanks Mum :o) ) I remember enjoying this cake when I was growing up but moaning about the addition of the walnuts, which she use to substitute for other toppings. 

This is the first time that I have used this recipe and I have made it for my Mum's birthday. I started to realize that this was a brave move as I didn't make any spare cake for testing and didn't want to cut into it to test it out. So I spent all evening convincing myself that I had made a mistake but as it turns out she loved it and it tasted quite good. It's an easy cake to make and can also be turned into scrummy cup cakes so why not give it a go.

Ingredients

8oz Self Raising flour 

 1 level tsp baking powder

6oz caster sugar

6oz margarine/butter

3 eggs

3 tbsp coffee 

Method

• Pre-heat the oven to 190’c

• Make up some coffee with 1 tbsp of coffee and a little hot water then mix well. Put to one side and leave to cool

• Sift together the flour and baking powder into bowl

• Put all ingredients into the bowl including the rest of the coffee and mix well

• Poor into cake tins and bake for around 25 minutes (I found that around 20 was enough in my oven)

For the icing

• Add melted butter, A little coco and coffee to the icing sugar and mix with warm water until smooth. I used coffee which I mixed with a little warm water rather than straight coffee granules.