Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Chocolate Chips

4.94 from 16 votes

Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Chocolate Chips

Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Chocolate Chips is the best zucchini dessert recipe! Easy, tender, dense and loaded with chocolate flavor!

Prep Time20

Cook Time40

Total Time1

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings:

Calories: 460kcal

Author: Julie Evink

Ingredients

1/2 c. butter softened
1/2 c. canola oil
1 3/4 c. white sugar
2 eggs
1/2 c. buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 c. flour
4 Tbsp cocoa
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
2 c. zucchini grated
1 c. semi sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

In a large mixing bowl cream butter, oil, eggs and sugar. Add buttermilk and vanilla. Mix until combined.
Sift dry ingredients together. Add to creamed mixture until just combined. Stir in zucchini.
Spread in a greased 9x13 inch baking pan or 2 - 8x8 inch pans. Sprinkle chocolate chips over the top.
Bake at 325 degrees for 40-45 minutes for the 9x13 inch pan or 35 minutes for the 8x8 inch pan.

Video

Notes

What I love about baking with zucchini is that it adds so much moisture. Depending on what you’re making you can’t taste it at all, like this chocolate zucchini cake. Zucchini is mostly water so when it bakes in the cake it releases all of its moisture and practically disappears therefore you don’t need as much oil in recipes with zucchini.
You don’t have to peel the zucchini first, just grate it and you’re done! You can use a box grater or you can use the grating attachment on your food processor to grate the zucchini.
You don’t want to chop the zucchini with a knife because the pieces will be too big and the zucchini won’t disappear into the cake.
You need two cups of grated zucchini for this recipe and it’s a good idea to use small to medium-sized zucchinis. Big zucchini often have a lot of seeds, which you can remove but it just adds one more step. You don’t need to worry about the seeds with smaller ones and you can just grate them up.
Don’t squeeze the grated zucchini to remove the moisture! You want all of that moisture to be in the cake.
Don’t worry about tasting the zucchini in the cake. No one will ever know it’s in there if you don’t want them too.
I’ve already mentioned it, but for the best chocolate zucchini cake use two bowls to make the cake! I know it means one more bowl to wash, but I promise it makes a big difference. The texture of the cake will be so much better because when you use two bowls you don’t have to worry about over mixing the cake.
Once you add the dry ingredients to the wet ones you want to mix the batter until it’s just combined. That way you won’t overwork the flour and your cake will be a lot more tender.
You can make one big cake or two smaller ones just be sure to note the bake times depending on the pan size you use. Two 8×8 cakes will need about 5 to 10 minutes less bake time than a 9×13-inch cake. It’s always a good idea to start checking on the cake a little early because, depending on your oven, you may need more or less time to bake your cake. You know when it’s ready when an inserted toothpick comes out clean!
You could stir the chocolate chips into the batter but I love how they look sprinkled over the top of the cake. They add some texture and a chocolate layer on the cake. Plus, I love the way the look on the finished cake!

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