Chocolate Zucchini Cake

This chocolate zucchini cake is something I make every late summer/early fall, garden zucchini is plentiful. If you are a gardener, you know what I mean when I say all the sudden there's more zucchini than one knows what to do with. It's moist and chocolatey, exactly as it should be. I use a bit of tahini in my batter...I always like replacing some of the butter with healthier fats in baking recipes. I haven't tried it, but I would assume you could just use 100% butter instead of tahini if you had allergy concerns. 

I like to bake it in an 8 x 13 inch metal cake pan, but you could of course just as easily use two smaller circular pans for a layer cake, or bake them into cupcakes. For frosting, I am a peanut butter fanatic, so that is often my go to....but my second choice would be chocolate frosting...I'd even be inclined to put a bit of mint extract in the chocolate version...I also love chocolate mint!

For the chocolate factor in my cake batter, I simply use cocoa powder. I do like trying to buy something good quality and organic if it is available. ​

There are many brands of vegan butter, and I think any of them would work perfectly fine in this recipe. I often buy Earth Balance brand, because that is what is available, but I have started noticing grocery store brands selling plant based butter, and they are often the significantly more affordable option, so I'm inclined to start experimenting with those instead. You might notice that plant based products are scattered all over a grocery store. The "Earth Balance" brand I find in the organic health food section at the places where I shop, where as the grocery store brand example "presidents choice" plant based butter, is located with the regular dairy butter. 

The only question is, how are you going to frost your cake?! I love peanut butter frosting. I love peanut butter anything, so this isn't surprising. Chocolate, or chocolate mint frosting are also worthy contenders high up on my list!