What better way to celebrate a late July birthday than with fresh from the oven/garden chocolate zucchini cupcakes! Because I knew I was catering to LOTS of kids, I made this cake with (gasp) processed, granulated sugar! The next day, I learned from Nita from the Cedar Falls farmer’s market that you can get raw sugar locally (at Roots Market in Cedar Falls for those Cedar Vallians) and also use other sweeteners such as sorgum, molasses and agave as a sugar substitute. But, the point here is that one of the primary ingredients in this cake was zucchini grown and nurtured by our neighbors, Kristin and Jesse. And, incidentally, the eggs and milk also came from local producers.
Here’s the recipe, which combines the Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolate Cake recipe with some of my own modifications and, zucchini, of course!
Birthday Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes
Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY’S Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups grated zucchini
Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Line muffin tins with cake papers.
2. Combine all dry ingredients
3. With a mixer, beat together the oil and the sugar until well combined. Add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture one at a time, beating well after each addition. With a spoon, stir in the vanilla, orange peel and zucchini.
4. Alternately stir the dry ingredients and the milk into the zucchini mixture, including the nuts with the last addition.
5. Bake 17 to 20 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely.
Butter Cream Frosting
I used this recipe from Wilton.
Big thumbs up! I have a 10 year old who is allergic to milk, so I’m going to try this with soy milk instead 🙂 I like finding recipes without butter/margarine and chocolate chips etc because they all seem to contain milk products now…the milk/soy subsitution works best for sweet foods! Thank you for sharing!
Holly,
My son was put on a dairy-free diet for awhile, so I feel your pain. I will be posting more recipes and will remember to include the milk substitute option. Enjoy!
–Mariah
Holly,
My son is allergic to dairy as well. I use Blue Bonnet Light margarine sticks and Ghiradelli chocolate chips for baking. Both are dairy free. They do make a vegan chocolate chip, but it’s definately not as good as Ghiradelli, and it costs more.