Courgettes? Surely not!

Hi All,


I thought that it would be nice to post recipes from the show as the weeks pass, so that you have the chance to try these things out on your friends and family.


Todays recipe is for the two tier Chocolate Courgette Cake that featured in programme one.
Despite the comments by the judges, the cigarillos are not an attempt to mask poor icing, they are in fact because I love posh chocolate! Fact.

Two Tier Chocolate Courgette Cake.

• 15oz plain chocolate
• 17.5 oz self-raising flour
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 12 oz caster sugar
• 6 eggs
• 18 fluid ounces vegetable oil.
• 24 oz peeled weight courgette
• 6 oz chopped walnuts

Butter Cream Icing.

• 750g butter, unsalted
• 3 tsp vanilla essence
• 1.8kg Icing sugar
• 6 table spoons milk

Decoration.

• Fresh grapes, deep blue if possible and seedless, two large bunches on the vine.
• Fresh red currants on the vine, two large bunches.
• Medium sized whole strawberries, with tops. two large punnets.
• White and milk chocolate cigarillos, 2 x 700g packs of each colour, cigarillos must be a minimum of 10cm long.

Method for cake:

1. Set oven to 180 degrees Celcius.
2. Grease and flour a 6” and 10” cake tin
3. Melt the chocolate
4. Grate the peeled courgettes
5. Whisk eggs and oil together.
6. Put all dry ingredients (flour,salt,sugar) into a large bowl.
7. Mix in the egg and oil and beat until glossy.
8. Add chocolate, grated courgettes and chopped nuts.
9. Stir well.
10. Pour mixture into two tins and bake for an hour or until sponge is slightly springy to the touch.
11. Cool in tin for ten minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.
12. Decorate with chocolate cigarillos.
13. Arrange tumbling fresh fruit down the side of cake and around base.
14. Dust fruit lightly with icing sugar.

Extra equipment required.

• 8” crank handled spatula/icing knife
• Lazy Susan 15”
• 6” and 10” loose bottomed or clasped cake tins
• Wooden dowel rods x 6
• Cardboard cake trays (thin board) 8”
• 15” Cake board.
• Secatuers for cutting dowels

Nerve racking doesn't quite cover it!

This recipe is deceptively simple, and if you are even remotely good at making and decorating cakes, this will be a breeze.

On the programme we were kitted out with nordic branded Cake Lifters. I cannot stress how useful these simple little devices are. I highly recommend one for large heavy cakes such as this one.

We were also given some very useful cake thermometers. The ends turn red when the cake is cooked and come from Nordic also. Again I can recommend these, and no I am not on commission from Nordic.

This cake can be scaled back and made as a great single cake, split in two and filled with chocolate buttercream. The top of the cake takes on a lovely crispy texture.

I challenge you to make this cake last more than a couple of days in a busy household.

I will post recipes from the show as we move through the programme, so make sure to follow my blog for updates.

Thanks for reading.

Concerned for Rob after he dropped his cake.

Simon.