Zucchini … brownies?!

Okay, so not maybe brownies – more like a cake, I think. Either way, I was really pleasantly surprised with how good it turned out. When my mother-in-law’s friend told me about it at the annual family cookout, I was dubious but wanted to try it anyway. So I came home and looked up a few different recipes, finally deciding on this one from allrecipes.com. I actually didn’t change anything, because I honestly had no idea what to expect.

When I started putting together all the ingredients, my dubiousness [I was really waiting for my spell check to tell me "dubiousness" isn't a word, and apparently it is, and now I feel silly] grew when the batter resembled something the husband cleans out of the rat cage, and not something that would make for a delicious baked good. However, once I put the zucchini in there, it moistened right up and looked fairly normal. That’s when I stopped being nervous about the taste – the carrot cake I make is similar in that the batter is just on this side of dry until I put in the grated carrots, and it suddenly becomes a thick and luscious batter. Also, I’ll have you know that I’ve never used the word luscious in conversation, but now that I have a blog, this is apparently how I talk about food. Weird.

The original recipe included a recipe for frosting, but I didn’t make that. Why, you ask? Because I don’t like frosting. I know, I know, it’s like I’m a Communist. But fear not, comrade; you can refer back to the original recipe, or read Julia’s post about frosting and go from there. The recipe for the brownies can be found below:

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups shredded zucchini

Preheat oven to 350. Mix oil, sugar, and vanilla [I actually forgot the vanilla, and it was fine without it]. In a separate bowl, add all the dry ingredients and then add to the sugar mixture. Mixture will be really dry and crumbly at this point. Add zucchini and mix, the batter will loosen up and become glossy. Cook in a 9×13 pan for 20 – 25 minutes, or until the brownies spring back when you touch them.

Now, those directions look nice and reasonable; easy to follow, some might say. Some, however, don’t have my lack of attention to detail. I just kind of tossed everything into my mixing bowl, mixed the zucchini in pretty vigorously, and then baked it in a 7×11 pan. Mine came out really cake-like, which according to the reviews of the recipe happened to almost everyone if they didn’t undercook it.

All in all, a good recipe to try, but I don’t really see the added health benefit to it, unless I’m going to replace some of the oil with zucchini in the future. I mean, sure, you’re eating more vegetables but it’s still covered in sugar and cocoa powder.