Day 29 – Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes

What a happy, baby-filled week!! Today I wanna congratulate my friends, Britt & Carly, on welcoming their son, Guyver, into the world!!

I promise this is not a health kick, by the way!  Blueberry Cupcakes yesterday and these Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes (recipe below from Serious Eats) today.  But, seriously, they are NOT a health food!

    

The cake is very chocolate-y.  No zucchini flavor at all.  All chocolate goodness.  Moist and delicate chocolate goodness, to be more specific!  I could probably justify making this a chocolate zucchini muffin.  No frosting required.

This fluffy and creamy frosting is all cream cheese. Not sweet frosting flavored at all.  It’s a little different, but I’m guessing there’s a purpose…

    

Frosting cuts chocolate richness, but just a little.  Balance is very nice.  It leans heavily on the taste of the cupcake with just a hint of frosting.

Grating the zucchini was the only semi-difficult (mostly just time-consuming) part of this recipe.  Everything else is simple.  (Note: I decorated a few with fancy piping, but the simple frost looked better.  They’re not ‘fancy’ cupcakes!)

Scoring Sheet:

– Cupcake Taste: 4

– Frosting Taste: 2

– Overall Taste: 4

– Appearance: 3

– Ease of Making: 3.5

– TOTAL: 16.5

RECIPE

Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes (recipe from Serious Eats)

• For the Cupcakes:
• 2 1/3 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 pound grated zucchini (not peeled,which will yield about 4 cups of packed, grated zucchini, using the large holes on a box grater)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 stick butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup chocolate chips

• For the Frosting:
• 8 ounces cream cheese
• 1 stick butter
• 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons cup powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup walnuts, chopped (optional, to sprinkle on top)

For directions visit Serious Eats

*Tomorrow: Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream*