Zucchini Bars Plus Bonus Chocolate Zucchini Cake Recipe

This recipe was a good use of our precious zucchini. We've gotten maybe 7-8 zucchini, but I won't be happy until I have enough zucchini to eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in one day. I fondly remember the year of the zucchini in which that happened. That my friends, is what summer is all about.

Zucchini Bars, originally from Allrecipes

They were almost gone by the time I took the picture.

Ingredients

3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups grated zucchini
1/2 cup margarine
1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese
2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch pan.
In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla until well blended. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; stir into the sugar mixture. Mix in the zucchini. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow bars to cool completely before frosting. To make the frosting, blend together the margarine, cream cheese and confectioners' sugar until well blended. Spread over cooled bars before cutting.

These were good and very moist. I substituted 3/4 c applesauce for that much oil and used all the zucchini I had, which was 3 c. It was almost too moist, so if you add more zucchini, squeeze some moisture out and/or don't substitute quite as much applesauce as I did. They were still very good. Brian thought they tasted kind of like carrot cake, and I agree. They were more cakey than bar-y.

BONUS! 

I feel a little guilty because I changed the original recipe so much that it wasn't really the same cake, but here is a recipe for chocolate zucchini cake from Simply Recipes.  I only had the second page of the recipe (the instructions), so if someone else has the first page, maybe she can make the recipe as it was written and give a better review. Since it was printed off the internet, I looked up the website and made it from there. I don't remember exactly what I changed (it's been over a month), but I know I didn't have any orange peel or nuts, and this might have been when I ran out of brown sugar.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake Recipe

INGREDIENTS
2 1/2 cups regular all-purpose flour, unsifted
1/2 cup cocoa
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup soft butter
1 cup white granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
3 cups coarsely shredded zucchini (from about 1 pound of zucchini)
1/2 cup milk
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
Glaze (directions follow)

Glaze:
2 cups powdered sugar
3 Tbsp milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

1 Set the shredded zucchini to drain in a sieve over a bowl. If no moisture drains out and the zucchini feels dry, sprinkle some water over it and let the excess drain.

2 Vigorously whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, soda, salt, and cinnamon in a bow, and set aside.

3 With a mixer, beat together the butter and the sugars until smooth. Add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture one at a time, beating well after each addition. With a wooden spoon, stir in the vanilla, orange peel, and zucchini.

4 Alternately stir in the dry ingredients and the milk into the zucchini mixture, including the nuts with the last addition.

5 Spray the inside of a 10-inch bundt pan or tube pan lightly with cooking spray (or grease with butter). Wipe off the excess. Pour in the batter and use a rubber spatula to level the top of the batter. Bake in the oven for about 50-55 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean (test at 45 min). Cool in pan 15 minutes; turn out on wire rack to cool thoroughly.

6 Make the glaze by mixing together the glaze ingredients. You can easily do this by hand with a whisk or a spoon. If the glaze is too runny, add some more powdered sugar. If too thick, add more milk. Drizzle glaze over cake.

Cut in thin slices to serve.

Yield: Makes 10-12 servings.