The photo of Jason and a rather large zucchini shows what happens when you leave town for a few days. Inevitably, a huge squash will be waiting for you when you return home. (As an aside, I would just like to explain my son's hair by saying that at the time of this photo he had just gotten home from playing in two baseball games, and went immediately outside to start playing wiffle ball. And he is getting a trim today. And in the summer, teenage boys seem to think that jumping in the creek or ocean substitutes for a shower). In my quest to find great, creative uses for zucchini, I came across a great recipe for chocolate-zucchini cupcakes on the website "101cookbooks.com". Although I had to get up at 5:30 to bake them because it was so hot last weekend and we don't have air conditioning, it was worth it! Everyone who tasted them thought they were great, and they all got eaten. Here's the recipe as I made them:
Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes
1 1/2 cups brown sugar (seems like a lot but necessary bc of the cocoa)
1/4 cup melted butter
3/4 cup vegetable oil (I might try applesauce instead next time. The author used coconut oil.)
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups unbleached flour
1 cup cocoa (unsweetened)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon (the recipe also calls for 1 tsp allspice, but I didn't add it to mine)
Preheat oven to 350 and line or grease muffin tins
In mixing bowl, mix brown sugar, butter and oil. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then vanilla, buttermilk, and zucchini.
Fold in chocolate chips (I saved some and sprinkled them on top).
In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients, then add to liquid ingredients until combined. Spoon batter into pans (I filled each tin almost to the top and got 16 cupcakes).
Bake for about 30 minutes - test with a toothpick and remove from oven when just done to keep moist. Cool them on a wire rack.
The recipe says you can frost them, which would be great and desserty....I however took some to a baseball game in the morning, so I left them unfrosted and muffin-like, which was just as good and seemed more a.m.-appropriate.
I will definitely be making these again!
