Alright, I’ve been sitting on this one for a couple of days with the giddy excitement that can only be brought on by heavenly cake. With this recipe I have actually blown my own chocoholic mind… and it was almost completely accidental.
Here’s how it all happened.
I recently became obsessed with the idea of creating a double chocolate zucchini loaf made with rye flour. I figured that a rich chocolaty loaf would be lovely with the dense earthiness of rye. My first couple of attempts were not great. One of them came out of the oven looking promising, but when I cut into it I found that it had formed a weird solid shell the center of which was filled with horrible zucchini rye mush. The crows got that one (I’m not sure that they were even interested). Next came another offering that was baked through, but dry,tough,hideous, and nearly entirely devoid of any kind of flavour, let alone a delicious rich chocolate flavour. There were a couple of other attempts too with varying degrees of disappointment… there are an awful lot of fat crows around Shetland these days…
So it was with serious trepidation that I decided to have another shot at it the other day. As I was preparing I just happened to notice a recipe on the back of the rye flour bag for “Chocolate almond loaf cake”. The flour was Dove’s Farm, so it was one of their recipes, and it sounded glorious. I used to always disregard the recipes on the back of packaging, but recently I started to pay attention, and it turns out that back-of-package-recipes are a gold mine of wonderful ideas.
This recipe called for ground almonds and melted chocolate along with the Rye flour, and also had instructions for a decadent sounding chocolate icing…hmm..weirdly I hadn’t even considered icing for the chocolate zucchini loaf…perhaps this glaring oversight was the problem all along.
Armed with the newfound recipe and a bag of ground almonds I began to tweak the ingredients a bit. I replaced the butter with yogurt, the sugar for maple syrup, and added some zucchini and chocolate chips. I mixed it up and plopped it in the oven and when it came out it was actually the right size and shape, had a bit of springiness when poked, and a skewer came out clean. Promising so far.
Then came the conundrum of icing. The original recipe had an icing basically made of butter, sugar and cream…not quite on point with the mission. You may have noted that I am more than a tad obsessed with cashew cream at the moment, so of course the train of thought went something like this: “Hmmm, I wonder if you could make chocolate ganache using cashew cream instead of actual cream?” I melted down the chocolate, added a little sweetness to the cream and stirred it all together. After a brief rest in the fridge it was ready. Of course I had to taste it first though. Oh…my…heavens… It’s texture is very similar to chocolate mousse, as is the flavour. This was one of those moments of culinary elation. This is delicious. You could actually whip up a batch of this icing and serve it as vegan chocolate mousse on it’s own.
The whole thing together is…well…it is the definition of joy. The cake is moist, chocolaty and has a beautiful texture. And topped with the moussey icing it’s quite simply glory on a plate. Chocolate zucchini rye cake; my idea of heaven.
- 3 eggs, lightly beaten
- 75g maple syrup
- 75g plain, full fat yogurt
- 125g dark chocolate, chopped into chunks
- 100g wholemeal rye flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 75g ground almonds
- 75g grated zucchini
- 125g dark chocolate, chopped
- 125g cashew cream
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2Tbsp maple syrup
- Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and lightly oil a 2Lb loaf tin.
- Wrap the grated zucchini in a clean tea towel and squeeze out some of the water. Set aside.
- In a bain-marie or a bowl set over simmering water, gently heat 75g of the chocolate until just melted.
- In a medium bowl combine the eggs, maple syrup, and yogurt, and whisk until smooth. Add the chocolate and stir until well incorportated.
- In a large bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and ground almonds.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry and beat until well combined.
- Stir through the zucchini and remaining chocolate chunks until evenly distributed.
- Pour the batter into the prepared tin and smooth out the top.
- Place it in the oven and bake until risen and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
- Set it on a wire rack and allow to cool for ten minutes in the tin and then remove it from the tin and allow it to cool completely.
- Meanwhile to make the icing melt the chocolate the same way as you did for the cake.
- While it’s melting whisk together the cashew cream, vanilla and maple syrup.
- Once melted, add the chocolate to the mixture and whisk well. Put the icing in the fridge and leave to set up a bit, for around 15 minutes.
- Once the cake is cool and and the icing set to a spreadable consistency, split the cake in two horizontally. Spread half of the icing on the bottom half, carefully place the top half on, and spread the remaining icing carefully over the top.
- For the cashew cream, submerge 100g cashews in cold water and leave to soak overnight. In the morning strain and rinse them thoroughly and then blitz with 150ml water until smooth and creamy. Store in an airtight container in the fridge.