chocolate, meet zucchini

Imagine you're on Chopped and you have a basket with chocolate chips, zucchini, olive oil and curry powder. It's the dessert course. What would you make? How about an amazing chocolate cake?

Over the last three weeks it's been far too hot for cooking but I've turned on the oven twice. Both times to make this cake. The original recipe comes from my favorite "What do I do with this vegetable?" cookbook, From Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide to Seasonal, Farm-Fresh Produce. I've changed it up a lot over the years to inject healthier ingredients and more flavor, and it's evolved into one of the best chocolate cakes ever. When the zucchini is coming out of the garden faster than I can keep up, I love to make it. My son looks at me with awe when I cut him a piece warm from the oven and he says, I quote, "Thank you, gorgeous!" Whether he's thanking me or the cake, I don't know, but that's about enough to encourage me to make it a third time in one month. That, and the fact that I don't feel one bit bad eating seconds.

The Moistest-Ever Chocolate Zucchini Cake

3/4 cup olive oil
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 t. vanilla
1/2 cup almond milk
3 T cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. curry powder
1/4. t. cloves
2 cups shredded zucchini
1 cup chocolate chips

Mix together oil, sugar, eggs, vanilla and milk. Sift together dry ingredients and add to the wet. Stir in zucchini and chips. Pour into greased 9 x 13 pan. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

A couple tips:
-Sift your dry ingredients onto a piece of waxed paper, then pick up the paper and pour the sifted ingredients into the bowl. You save washing another bowl and the paper can be saved and used again. I always do this for cookies, too.
-Shred extra zucchini and keep it in sealed container in the fridge. As soon as the first cake's demolished, you'll want to make another one and the zucchini prep will be done. Or, try these Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies from Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Chocolate meets zucchini there, too. Also with yummy results.
-Save your butter wrappers in a bag in the freezer. When it's time to grease a pan, pull one out and rub it on your pan. There is usually enough butter left on one wrapper to cover a whole pan. Then throw the wrapper away - nothing wasted!
-Substitute buttermilk for the almond milk if you prefer. Coconut milk would probably work well, too.
-If you don't like curry, leave it out. The flavor is subtle; it's mostly just fun to say that there is curry in the cake. That's why I added it, next Food Network Star that I am.