Zucchini Tuesday - I want cake!

As you know, Greenskin 1 has gone to to the great compost bin in the sky. Greenskin 2 has been doing very, very well and yesterday I picked my first zucchini from it. Yay!

Now one zucchini isn't very many is it! So the other day I bought a few zucchini from the green grocers so that I could make something. I decided I wanted cake.

As I had a large number of pilfered apples on the sideboard it had to be a zucchini and apple cake, but was there such a thing? A quick google and I found many zucchini and apple cakes so I got grating.

I amended the recipe quite a bit. It may be bad for my arteries but a cake isn't a cake if it doesn't have butter in it so one of the amendments was to substitute the suggested oil. I also reduced the amount of sugar  and made it the soft brown type instead of the recommended white. I also applied a spice and sugar mix to the top of the cake instead of mixing the spices thru the cake mix. Anyhow here is my version of the cake.

Zucchini and apple cake
2 cups grated zucchinis
2 cups grated apple (after peeling and coring)
1 cup soft brown sugar
150g butter
3 eggs
2 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts
1/2 cup sultanas

For sprinkling on the top
1 tsp Pumpkin Pie spices (this was given to me as a yummy Christmas gift on instruction to use it when I use cinnamon).
1 tsp raw sugar

Do the usual mixing - you know how to make a cake! This is a big cake so prepare a big tin with the usual lining.

I cooked it until I thought it was cooked based on the springyness, the skewer .... and well, it is a bit gluggy, especially down the bottom - I mustn't have put the skewer in far enough. I am not sure that it is a complete failure....it tastes pretty nice, perhaps I will serve slices hot and call it a pudding?

What would I do next time? Well, I'd reduce the amount of apple and zucchini - I'd only put in 1 cup of each, that would make it less dense and help it to cook thru better.

So if you are sick of zucchinis as a savoury vegetable, then try this with the amends I suggest. If you peel the zucchini then the kids wont know that it has zucchini in it.

Happy zucchini  growing and eating. Until next week, love your zucchini.

Monday Harvest - 16th July

A wonderful sunny winter day spent making and eating my favourite lemon cake and lolling about in the grass with friends talking about plans and dreams and changes. While lolling, we nibbled on fresh snow peas from the patch -  it doesn't get much better than that. With friends around  it was a good opportunity to share some of the produce. 

I picked 3 cabbages - two decent sized ones and a tiny one that was on the shady side of the patch and wasn't really going to get much bigger.

I kept one large one and the small one and gave the other large one away. That is the end of  the cabbages...

I also picked a big bunch of spring onions and shared half with my visitor. This is just half the bunch.

The only other produce that is in abundance at present is the rocket - I have a forest of rocket at the moment so my friends left with a huge bunch of rocket as well.  My friends tell me that the bunch will become rocket pesto. (What the hell am I going to do with the rest of the forest!). 

For more harvests pop over to Daphne's Dandelions.

A glut of lemons (3) and finger lime progress

Tiny tiny first finger lime

Picked

• lettuce
• parsley
• herbs

Last Sunday I noticed a tiny flower on the finger lime 'Collette'.  I have been watching its progress closely.  The pink flower bud opened into a small but very stameny flower white in colour.  I wish I had taken a picture because the flower didn't last very long at all!

the first finger lime flower

 One week later and the first fruit has begun to form. Collette is supposed to have black shiny fruit -  certainly it looks like that is going to happen!  The fruit at present is a dark dark purple.  Here is the picture of the flower I took last week.


Back to the lemon glut... I have made a cake called 'Canadian Lemon cake'.




Canadian Lemon Cake
This is a recipe that I cut out of a newspaper a long long time ago.  I suspect that it was from Melbourne's Age newspaper when we lived there, but that was now around 12 years ago that we left that fine city.

I quote from the  newspaper cut out, "Quite simply one of the best lemon cakes of all time. The mixture is buttery and light and the lemon syrup gives a fresh tart flavour that everyone loves."  Hard to resist right?  I copy the ingredients here as they appear but have simplified the method -  you know how to make a cake...

Cake

Lemon cake, eaten warm

125g butter
1 1/4 cup caster sugar
grated rind of 1 lemon*
3 tablespoons lemon* juice
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup milk

Syrup
2 tablespoons lemon* juice
grated rind of 1 lemon*
1/4 cup caster sugar

Prepare a tin and heat the ovento180C.

Cream butter and sugar and then add lemon rind and juice and mix.  Beat in eggs gradually.  Sift flour with baking powder and add to the mix alternately with the milk.  Turn into the pan and bake at 180C until browned on top and firm to the touch. Remove from the pan when a little cooled.

In the meantime, put all syrup ingredients in a saucepan and heat until sugar has dissolved.  Pour the syrup onto the top of the cake and allow it to run down the sides and soak into the cake.