Throughout the entire challenge, the holiday baking portion has been my favorite. I’ve made cakes inspired by pie, after dinner drinks and so many cranberry treats! For Christmas I’ve been planning something really special for a while.
If you aren’t yet part of a cookbook club, stop everything you’re doing and find yourself a group of friends who love cooking and food as much as you do and start one! This week’s French Chocolate Cake is the direct product of doing the aforementioned.
Throughout the entire challenge, I’ve received comments and messages from family all over asking about the challenge, sharing recipes and in general, virtually drooling over all 41 of the cakes I’ve written about and photographed. This fall, when my grandpa turned 80, I got the opportunity to share the challenge with family from all over.
Throughout this entire project I’ve been asked, “Do you have a favorite?” While the answer certainly feels like I’m being forced to choose a favorite child, I do indeed have a favorite. Well really I had a favorite.
There’s no sugar coating it, or maybe there is given the nature of the challenge, but I’ve fallen behind. Not in actually baking the cakes, but in sharing with the interwebs my progress and commitment to insanity.
In the beginning of the challenge, I knew I was crazy. 52 cakes in a year? Ambitious, yes. Certifiable, after this week… maybe. I say this because my inspiration for week 34’s recipe and cake was vegetables. Early in the week, I got it in my mind that I wanted to make a zucchini cake, reminiscent of everyones favorite speckled green tea cake. To my disappointment, a recipe didn’t exist!
Several days of recipe research later, I decided I would adapt the ingredients for carrot cake to emulate soft, moist and carmely sweet zucchini bread in the form of a sheet cake. The recipe creation ended up being simpler than I thought (shared below) and I swapped out carrot shreds for zucchini and removed the typical nuts and dried fruit as well as spicy flavors.
Because zucchini bread is usually made sweeter with the addition of chocolate chips, I decided to top it with creamy thick chocolate frosting featuring an unlikely main ingredient. Sweet potatoes!
After using this frosting for the chocolate vegan cake I made during week 12, I knew it needed to make another appearance during the challenge. When I was developing the recipe for the zucchini cake, I immediately thought to top it with this frosting to up the vegetable ante. I ended up bringing the cake into work and having people guess what was in the frosting. Few had good luck, but everyone was shocked to find out it was only two ingredients, one of them being a vegetable! It’s that good. Creamy, rich, chocolatey, decadent, if you’re feeling sneaky, no one will ever know.
I’m telling you, this frosting is the best kept secret for those who enjoy alternative less refined baking methods. The only ingredients are chocolate chips and sweet potatoes and if you have a high power blender or food process it’s easy to make. I first saw it made on Food52, but I’ve shared the recipe below.
Ingredients For Cake:
Ingredients For Frosting:
Method:
Preheat oven to 350 and line and grease a rectangular sheet cake pan with parchment paper. Prick your sweet potato with a fork (keep the skin on), wrap in foil and place in oven to roast.
Sift or whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Set aside. If using a food processor, attach the grating blade and run your zucchini through the processor. If you have a Cuisinart, use it. If you don’t, get one. Save the grated zucchini to fold in as the final step.
In a separate large bowl, mix the sugar and oil together with a hand mixer on medium speed. Once combined, turn the speed down, and add the eggs one at a time. Then add the vanilla and continue beating until combined.
Fold the dry ingredients to the wet until no streaks show. I ended up using the hand mixer to help combine the mixture. Once the dry and wet are thoroughly mixed, fold in the zucchini, ensuring equal distribution through out the batter.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack.
At this point the sweet potato should be soft and cooked through. Remove from oven, carefully peal off skin and save until the cake has cooled. Once the cake is cooled, puree the sweet potato flesh in the food processor. Transfer the puree to a sauce pan to reheat. Add the chocolate chips. Once melted, return to the food processor and puree until thick and creamy. Spread the frosting all over the cooled cake, using an offset spatula to create swirl patterns.
Final thoughts on Eat your Veggies Cake:
It’s been a minute since I’ve been on here talking about cake. Why? My absence on the blog is on account of a handful of reasons. While I wish I could blame my delayed post entirely on the gorgeous weather outside, time spent with friends, eating on patios, playing with my pup Martha and decorating my new space, I’d be omitting some of the truth.
Over the weekend my boyfriend and I took a quick trip to Milwaukee to celebrate our birthdays together. As birthdays imply, it was a very indulgent weekend full of wine, dessert and so much other goodness!
To be honest, I enjoyed myself so much this weekend, I didn’t even think about what cake I was going to be making until Monday night. Oops.
I’ve never been a fan of goodbyes. Whether I’m the one leaving or it’s someone else, I usually end up choking back tears and feeling mopey about it for days.
Case in point, I found out a few weeks ago one of my closest friends was moving to Minnesota for an amazing job opportunity (we’re talking actual childhood dream job!!!). Rather than being devastated about her impending departure, I distracted myself by researching potential cakes to serve at the going away party.
