I thought the recipe for Zucchini-Pecan Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting sounded good, and being able to use up my zucchini was just a bonus. I made this on a Sunday when we had some people over, so we wouldn’t have to eat the entire thing.
This recipe takes cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg, 1.5 cups of zucchini, and ¾ cup of olive oil. I had extra virgin olive oil, which they specifically said not to use, but at the time I thought it was an olive oil mix, so I used it anyway. This recipe also takes coarse salt for some reason, so that’s what I used. The recipe didn’t say to use an electric mixer, so I didn’t. I stirred together the dry ingredients with a tiny whisk. I mixed the wet ingredients with a wooden spoon, mixed in dry ingredients, and stirred in the shredded zucchini (after trying to get rid of a little extra liquid) and pecans. I baked it 3 extra minutes because it wasn’t done after 45 minutes. An hour later, I made the frosting. I didn’t adjust the frosting recipe at all.
Everyone seemed to like this (but they were my guests in my house, so who can say if they did or not). I thought it was okay. I’m not sure why the recipe called for coarse salt, because in this cake the coarse salt settled to the bottom in sections, and resulted in some salty bites. Not something I like. The olive oil definitely flavored this cake, so you may not want to use extra virgin olive oil, or use a mix of olive oil and canola oil. The frosting was the perfect amount to frost this cake on the top and sides. It was neither too thick nor too thin. The cake itself had a good, moist texture, and I liked the bites that had pecans.
Honestly, spiced cakes aren’t my thing. This one was fine. It was pretty easy to make (if you’ve got a good way to shred zucchini), and smells really good as you bake it. I suggest using a mixture of olive oil and canola oil, so that you don’t have an overwhelming olive oil flavor. Also, DO NOT use coarse salt, because I think it will probably settle to the bottom like it did in my recipe if you don’t mix it incredibly well. Give this a try if you like spiced cakes and you’ve got an abundance of zucchini like I did.
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