What's Cooking Wednesday? Zucchini, Zucchini, Zucchini!!

My garden and kitchen are runneth over with zucchini right now, so what better time than to try out new zucchini recipes.. and of course, if they can include chocolate, then even better!

I took a take on Heidi of 101 Cookbook's recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes




In the picture, it's hard to tell which is which, but the non-healthy and very delicious are on the left and the more healthy and still delicious are on the right.

I decided to try them two ways: healthy and non-healthy... here's how they worked:

You'll Never Guess Chocolate Cupcakes
(the unhealthy ones - Recipe by Erin)

These cupcakes are seriously to die for! They have a dark-chocolate like taste and are not too sweet. They are incredably moist (likely due to the secret ingredient) and your kids or husband will never know there's... (gasp).... zucchini in them!

2/3 c milk
1 1/2 tsp vinegar
1 1/2 c brown sugar
1/4 c melted butter
2/3 vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 c grated zucchini
1/2 c chocolate chips
2 c flour
1 c cocoa, sifted
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda.

Preheat Oven to 425F. Measure milk and add vinegar to it to sour it. Let stand for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, cream sugar and melted butter until mixed well. Add oil & milk. Mix well. Add eggs, one at a time, making sure the batter is well-encorporated after each egg. Add zucchini, chocolate chips and vanilla and stir by hand to encorporate. Sift dry ingredients together. Return batter to mixer and add dry ingredients to wet while mixing at low speed.

Fill approx. 12 muffin cups or 24 mini-muffin cups with batter. (make sure to spray the pan, even if non-stick, as the tops of the cupcakes seemed to want to stick).

Put in the oven at 425F for 6 minutes. After 6 minutes, turn heat to 350F. It takes approx. 12 minutes for mini-cupcakes or 18 min for regular cupcakes. Cupcakes are done when a toothpick comes out clean. Don't overbake or these will lose their moistness.

Let cool 10 min before removing from pan. Once baked, you will never know there is zucchini in these... it completely disappears!! A definite kid pleaser. In fact, the first time, I heard Matthew say "mum-mum-mum-mum-mum" as he was attempting to ask me for seconds!



You Might Guess Chocolate Muffins
(the healthy ones)

These muffins were based on my recipe above, with an attempt to make it a bit healthier. Of course, any "healthy" muffin's texture will vary greatly from a cupcake, enough so to make your husband say "what did you do to the second batch of cupcakes???" (answer, "they're healthy dear, that's what".... and the zucchini doesn't quite disappear as much as it does for the cupcakes, so if I make this again, I will finely grate the zucchini instead of coarsely grate it. None the less, Matthew still eats these by the handfull.

3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c applesauce
3/4 c vegetable oil
2 eggs plus 2 egg whites
1/2 c milk
1 1/2 tsp vinegar
2 c grated zucchini (finely grated)
1/2 c chopped walnuts (finely chopped)
2 c flour
1 c cocoa, sifted
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 425F. Combine milk and vinegar and set aside for 5 minutes. Combine Applesauce and brown sugar in mixer. Add vegetable oil and milk. Mix. Add eggs and whites, 1 at a time, beating well after each egg. Add zucchini and walnuts and mix by hand just until encorporated. Sift dry ingredients together. Add to wet either with mixer or by hand. Mix until just encorporated. Do not overmix.

Bake in oven at 425 for 6 minutes. After 6 minutes, lower heat to 350. Bake for approx. 10-12 minutes for mini-muffins or 15-18 minutes for regular size muffins.

p.s. These aren't very sweet. I intended them to be that way. If you want a much sweeter muffin, I would add in an extra 1/2 c sugar.


...by the way, don't forget to check out more great What's Cooking Wednesday Recipes on Shan's blog.