Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cake

I'm going to share my ages old recipe for Zucchini Chocolate-Chip Cake in a bit, but I need to explain a few things first.

I have Susan at She's Becoming DoughMessTic to thank for my latest kick, letter writing! Susan's responsible for a couple of reasons... first I won this totally adorable stationary set (courtesy of the folks at Yoplait) in a giveaway she was hosting (thanks, Susan and thanks, Yoplait!).



Secondly, she started a blogging pen-pals group, which you can read about here and here (at the bottom of her post).

Isn't that a fun idea? pen-pals? When's the last time you wrote a letter? I honestly can't remember the last time I wrote one.

So I signed up for Susan's pen-pal group and promptly notified my two pen-pal-ees, Tania and Sue (Sue, girl, I still need your address). We were to include a hand-written recipe with our letter so I decided to send one of my all-time favorite cake recipes from back when I was a kid, Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cake.


I hadn't made it in ages, so I thought I'd better do a trial run to make sure it still worked out OK. I'm happy to report that it was still awesome and I had to share it with others pronto or I'd have eaten it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cake
Courtesy of our old family friend, Irene Fegler of Riverton, Wyoming

3 eggs
1 C. oil (or substitute 1/2 C. oil + 1/2 C. applesauce for a lower fat version)
3 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 C. all-purpose flour
2 C. sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 C. chocolate chips
1/2 C. chopped nuts
2 C. grated zucchini
cream cheese icing, recipe follows

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9x13-inch pan and dust with flour, tapping out the excess flour.

Sift the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Beat the eggs until foamy (I whisked by hand, but I suppose you could use a mixer) and add to the flour mixture. Add the oil and vanilla and mix well. (I substituted applesauce for half of the oil this time and it worked out fine, although it seemed like the cake didn't rise as much, but the taste was the same.)


Add the chocolate chips, nuts and zucchini and mix well.



Bake for 30-35 minutes (or possibly longer) or until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean, or when the sides of the cake just start to pull away from the pan. This time, I halved the recipe and baked in an 8-inch square pan. My baking time was 35 minutes in the 8-inch pan, so that's why I'm a little uncertain on the time required for a 9x13-inch cake.



Cool in pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. At this point you can turn the cake out of the pan onto a serving plate, or you can leave it in the pan, it's up to you. Cool to room temperature and frost with cream cheese icing (cream cheese icing recipe might make more than required. That's OK, it freezes beautifully.)

Cream Cheese Icing

1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter or margarine, softened
1 tsp. vanilla 1 pkg.
(16 oz.) powdered sugar (about 4 cups), sifted

BEAT cream cheese, butter and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended.

ADD sugar gradually, beating until well blended after each addition.

OK, folks, that's that. If you try this, give me a holler and let me know how you like it.