Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Sometimes, during the summer, I go out of town on a trip or two and leave my sad garden home all alone and neglected.  Rather than rue my absence, it puts all its energy into growth.

While I was processing this giant zucchini, I watched Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition.

And then I decided that this zucchini needed to be baked into a cake.  Too tough and stringy for anything else.  Weight loss shows and cake.  hmm.

I got the recipe from my favorite recipe standby, Epicurious.com.  The cake came together quite easily.  Since I wanted to do something a little fancy with it, I made two batches (I mean, I wasn't exactly working with a shortage of zucchini here).

So, nothing says fancy like canned cherry pie filling in the food processor, right?

Shut up.  It was totally delicious. 

The only thing left to do is make some frosting.  I used cherry flavored jelly to stabilize a whipped cream icing recipe.  I also froze the cake just to make sure it travelled well.  By the time dinner was over, the cake was thawed but still delightfully cool.

Here is my taste test sample using the bits I cut off the cake when I leveled it.

And here, is the finished product!  Voila!  You like what I did with that parchment paper?  Pretty terrific trick if you ask me.

The recipe I linked above is just for the single layer of the cake itself.  You can find a whipped cream icing recipe online with a google search.  And canned pie filling, well, that part is self explanatory!

I sure am going to miss the yummy fruits of my garden after the season is over!  Maybe it'll miss me and grow something fun for me to discover in the spring.