Roar Recipes

While this recipe may sound like a bizarre concept to those of you who don’t already indulge in ‘vegetable cakes’, don’t let the mention of courgette fool you into thinking this cake is any less of a tasty treat that your average one.

 

Now unfortunately I can’t really take credit for this recipe, as it’s an adaptation I’ve made to one of my favourite River Cottage cake recipes. Once again I’ve been experimenting with the coconut flour to reduce the carb content of the cake, and it turned out perfectly. With the addition of another egg and a little milk the cake retained its moist and airy texture. I’ve also added some lime zest into the main body of the cake for extra zingyness!

 

Ingredients

 

For the Cake

250g Courgettes

150g Wholemeal Flour

75g Coconut Flour

125ml Olive Oil

1 ½ tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

150g Golden Sugar

4 Eggs

30ml milk/almond milk

½ tsp Vanilla Powder (or 1 tsp of Vanilla Essence)

Zest of 1 Lime

 

For the Cream Icing

350g High Quality Cream Cheese

125g Icing Sugar

Juice of 1 Lime

 

Method

 

Grease two 20cm cake tins and pre heat the oven to 180*c. Whisk together the eggs, sugar and oil in a mixing bowl until its light and creamy. Next sieve in both flours, the bicarbonate of soda and baking powder, and whisk until fully combined.

 

Now add the milk, vanilla powder (or essence) and lime zest and whisk again briefly. Grate up all of the courgette and add this bit by bit to the mixture, folding it in using a wooden or plastic spoon. Be careful not to over mix at this stage, as this can take the air bubbles out of the mixture leaving you with a stogy cake!

 

Divide the mixture between the two cake tins and bake them for around 20-25mins. Once cooked remove both cakes from their tins and set them on a cooling rack.

 

While the cakes are cooling you can prepare the cream cheese icing to fill and top the cake. Begin by lightly beating the cream cheese. Once soft, sift in the icing sugar, add the lime juice and perhaps a little green food colouring. Lightly beat again to mix the ingredients together. Now place the icing in the fridge for 30mins to 1hours to help it set a little.

 

Once the cakes are cooled, begin by covering one of them with half of the cream cheese icing. Place the other cake on top and cover this with the remaining icing. You may also wish to scatter some chopped nuts on top for decoration, pistachios work rather nicely with this recipe!