Chocolate, zucchini and spinach cake with avocado chocolate frosting recipe Recipe

Andre Martin

Proudly supported by

Vegetables in a cake? Yes you heard right. This chocolate treat is made with veg!

Ingredients

Cooking oil spray, to grease

400g zucchini (about 2 zucchini), unpeeled, chopped

1 cup milk

60g baby spinach leaves

1 cup cocoa powder

250g butter, melted

2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed

6 free-range eggs

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

½ tsp baking powder

Strawberries, hulled, quartered, to garnish

Edible flowers, to garnish

Jasmine vine leaves and strawberry leaves from your garden, to garnish (do not eat, decoration only)

1½ avocados, halved, stoned

½ cup cocoa powder

¾ cup icing sugar mixture

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C fan-forced (200 degrees C conventional). Grease two 20cm round cake tins with cooking oil then line base and sides with baking paper. Put zucchini and milk in a blender and blitz until smooth. Add spinach and cocoa and blitz again.
Put butter and brown sugar in a large bowl and whisk until combined. Whisk in eggs, 1 at a time. Pour in zucchini mixture and whisk again until smooth. It's OK if mixture looks a little split.
Sift in flour, bicarb and baking powder and stir until smooth. Pour evenly into prepared tins. Bake for 45 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Set aside cakes for 15 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
To make avocado chocolate frosting, put all frosting ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and process until a smooth paste forms.
Spread ½ of the frosting on 1 cake then put other cake on top. Spread remaining frosting on top. To serve, garnish with strawberries, edible flowers and leaves (for decoration only, do not eat).