Zucchini and Pineapple Slice

Decided to try a recipe that I found the other day, a very simple mix and pour cake using, strangely enough, grated zucchini and crushed pineapple.

It was to be a project for the youngest Grandie and I, but we ran out of time because he found that really, he does like shopping, just so long as it's in a kitchen supply store. Buying the cake pan was a done deal in 30 seconds, and the rest of the time?............well, suffice to say, he went home with a little bag full of goodies.

Before we go too much further, I have to say that I was pretty flat about this cake, and the story will unfold as you go along, but the end result is a nicely flavoured, moist cake, and the Darling, who saw it on the kitchen bench, uniced, scoffed a piece and pronounced it yummy, and then he saw the green..............oops, but he still put his hand up for a piece for dessert so it can't be all bad

The full recipe is at the end of the post.

Firstly, put the flour, sugar, coconut, salt and spices into a large mixing bowl, and using your whisk, give them a bit of a stir up to blend, forming a well in the centre.

Grate 300grams zucchini, unpeeled, about 4 medium zucchini, and this is where I started to get a bit concerned, unpeeled zucchini has lots of skin, yep, green flecks all through the pile, I wasn't sure that this was going to turn out well.
Checked the recipe, very definitely unpeeled, there was even a footnote, and the pic of the finished cake looked rather dark, sort of chocolate colour, so I progressed, maybe all that cinnamon would make the cake dark?

In another bowl mix the oil, eggs and vanilla together, - sorry forgot to get a pic of that step, still worrying about the zucchini.....green? in a cake?......

Then pour the oil/egg mixture into the well in the flour, add the grated zucchini, which was looking greener by the minute, and the drained can of crushed pineapple.

Stir to blend, do not over stir. That green is not disappearing!Pour into a lined 9" x 13" (23 cm x 33cm) Pan. As a quilter I'm still way back there in the feet and inches world, but I checked these measurements against my handy dandy ruler.

The mixture ready to go into the oven, lots of green showing here folks.

This is the finished cake, straight from the oven, errk, look at all that green, with closed eyes the kitchen smells delicious and I can't wait for the cake to cool enough to have a little, but really, I don't think the Darling is going to be a happy camper...........what to do....confess before I send him off with it for lunch or just stick lots of cream cheese frosting on it and hope he doesn't notice?

It's pretty hard not to notice green in your cake.

See all those grrr green bits?

But as you see at the beginning of the post, it all turned out o.k. in the end, if you don't look too closely that is...

Recipe: Zucchini and Pineapple Slice

1 1/2 cups self raising flour

1 cup castor sugar

3/4 cup shredded coconut

pinch of salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

freshly grated nutmeg to taste, I used about 1/2 teaspoon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

3 tablespoons Grapeseed or other oil

2 large eggs - (minimum 59gram eggs)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 440 gram can crushed pineapple, drained, reserving some of the syrup for the frosting.

2 cups grated zucchini - well, let me tell you, no more with the unpeeled - next time, definitely peeled!

Cream Cheese Frosting

250 gram softened cream cheese

1 teaspoon butter

1 cup icing sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons reserved pineapple juice

Beat cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy, lower mixer speed and stir in icing sugar, adding a little pineapple juice as needed, when sugar has been incorporated, increase speed and whip until fluffy again.
Spread on top of slice, thickly to hide the green, maybe even sprinkle with a little extra coconut.

I'm a tad disappointed.