Battle Time!!!!

Here we go, readers: Iron Chef Hudson: Battle Zucchini!!!!!!

Between our two CSAs, Meredith and I received several pounds of zucchini - big ones, little ones, long ones, round ones. What's a girl to do? Make two different kinds of zucchini bread (apparently). Meredith opted for regular (read about it here), while I decided to go back to a recipe that I've tried and loved before - Clotilde Dusoulier's Chocolate Zucchini Cake.

A side note - Meredith took and photoshopped all these pictures. Gotta love her. Please don't tell me that her pictures are way better than mine. I already know that. Really. Also, I can't quite get all of them to work right now.....I'm getting there, I promise - technical help is needed.

But back to the cake. You can check out the recipe yourself here. I don't follow it exactly - when this recipe was published in the cookbook "Chocolate & Zucchini," a few details had been changed and I followed them - you'll be able to see what they are as I go along.

First I grated up my zucchini! This is an action shot. Meredith took it. She's fancy like that.


Then I chopped up some bittersweet chocolate. Usually, I'd buy bittersweet chocolate chips, but I couldn't find any in Hudson. I did find a huge bar of bittersweet chocolate though...as you can see (or would if I could get my pictures to work).

I put them in a bowl, along with a half cup of flour and mixed it up. This is so that the zucchini and chocolate chips don't sink straight to the bottom of the cake.

Then you take a new bowl and mix your dry ingredients together - flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk it up good so that it's all even.

Then you set it aside and mix brown sugar and olive oil together. I know, you're thinking "olive oil? That's crazy." But you're wrong. It is perfectly delicious and way better for you than butter. Then you mix in some vanilla and 3 eggs, one at a time.

Slowly incorporate the flour mixture to the wet mixture. The batter will be really thick. Then mix in your zucchini/chocolate concoction.

Here's my batter and Meredith's batter, side by side.


And here's the finished cake! I baked it at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes.


It was very good. You can't even really taste the zucchini (which could be a plus or a minus). It was nice and chocolatey. Who doesn't like that? Meredith's was excellent as well - super moist and delicious. Here we are, competitors no more and friends again, pretending to toast each other at our fake wedding.

Flakety Flan

Alright people, here it is: the long awaited (by me anyways) chocolate flan post. This is my last Cinco De Mayo recipe! Then it's back to made up pasta dishes and random fruit crumbles.

Chocolate Flake (flan+cake) adapted from El Charro

1 cup caramel

Cake:
1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1 2/3 cups sugar
2/3 cup cocoa
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Flan:
1 can condensed milk
1 can evaporated milk
3 eggs
2 egg whites
2 tsp vanilla

1. Grease a baking pan with the caramel. It's fun. It makes your hands sticky. I used a 10 inch springform pan which turned out to be a mistake. You'll see.


2. Beat all the cake ingredients in a mixing bowl on low speed for at least 30 seconds so that it's combined, then beat on high for 3 minutes. Pour the batter into the pan.


3. Beat all the flan ingredients on high for 2 minutes.


Pour the flan mixture on top of the cake mixture.


I thought it would stay separate. But it didn't. Let it sit out for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 45 minutes.



See the cute layers? That's nice. It would have a larger layer of flan if it hadn't all leaked out of my pan into the water bath that I placed it in......


Whoops. That's not good. It still tasted good though. And really, who likes flan that much? I maintain that it's mostly not that good (unless my Aunt Terry makes it. I like hers). Plus, chocolate cake? Always good. It all works out. The universe is looking out for me. And you. See, Chris likes it.


And here's Meredith again, huffing on whipped cream. Classic.