Eat. . . Anzac biscuits

Anzac Day commemorates the landing of the Australian and New Zealand (ANZAC) troops at Gallipoli on 25th April 1915. Anzac biscuits were baked across Australia and New Zealand and sent to the troops overseas during World War 1. They keep very well in an airtight tin or box, and use golden syrup to bind them rather than egg, as eggs were so scarce during the war years. See this webpage for more information (and an almost identical recipe!)

Nearly every year, as well as attending the local Anzac Parade I make a batch of Anzac biscuits to celebrate Anzac Day. I always use the recipe I was given on my first trip to Australia back in 1993, when I got my first taste of Anzac biscuits. There are lots of different versions, but these ones have worked well for me for years, and I hope you find the same.

Anzac Biscuits

1 cup rolled oats
1 cup plain flour
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup desiccated coconut
125 g butter (substitute margarine at your peril!)
2 tblsps golden syrup
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tblsp boiling water

Combine oats, sifted flour, sugar and coconut in a big bowl. Melt butter and syrup in saucepan. Mix bicarb of soda with boiling water, add to melted butter mixture and stir this into dry ingredients. Mix well.  Add a tiny bit more water if the mixture is too dry to stick together. Place a little more than teaspoon amounts on a greased tray. Allow room for spreading. Bake in slow oven (150C) for 20 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

PS It is important to use actual butter rather than margarine for these biscuits, as butter will give a good firm crunchy biscuit when cooled. Margarine gives a rather soft result, but I suppose some people like it that way?!

Pipe band lead Mapua Anzac Parade 2012

Some of the crowd at the Mapua Anzac service 2012

Two old soldiers lay a wreath on behalf of the Moutere Hills RSA

Eat. . . Welsh Cakes

Welsh cakes are a fond memory from my childhood, growing up in South Wales. In recent years I have begun making them a few times a year, and I always make some on St David's Day (he's the Patron Saint of Wales.) I guess you could call it a "new tradition" of mine, but don't tell Sonny Jim, as when we were discussing this concept recently he witheringly told me that "New traditions are axiomatically atypical!" on the basis that a tradition has to be old, in order to have become a tradition. . . but as I reminded him, all traditions had to start somewhere! Anyway, I digress. . .

This year I made Welsh cakes on the 1st March as usual, and took them for a shared lunch at the Wifie's workplace in Motueka. No-one there had tried Welsh cakes before, but everyone liked them and they were intrigued as to how they are baked on a bakestone or griddle rather than in the oven. I am not lucky enough to own a traditional bakestone, so have to make do with a heavy based frying pan, but that does an adequate job. . . A Welsh friend told me that in many old houses in Wales, the bakestone belongs with the house, so that when the house is sold the bakestone stays behind for the new owners. . . what a wonderful concept.

The following recipe is from the little "Welsh Teatime Recipes" book I was given a couple of years ago by a dear friend in Wales. No author is listed but the publisher is Salmon Publishing. You can tell all the recipes in the book are traditional as there are no metric measurements used throughout, but hopefully that won't cause you too much consternation! Any substitutions/changes that I usually make are in brackets.

Welsh Cakes or "Pice ar y maen"/"Tiesen Gri."


1 lb plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 pinch allspice (or ground mixed spice)
(1-2  tsps cinnamon in addition, I like my Welsh cakes spicy!)
A pinch of salt
3 oz butter
3 oz lard (I just use 6 oz butter and no lard)
(6 or) 7 oz caster sugar
4 oz seedless raisins (or currants)
2 eggs, beaten
Milk to mix
Caster sugar to sprinkle on top

Stir together flour, baking powder, spices and salt in a large bowl. Rub in the fat. Add sugar and dried fruit. Add beaten eggs to the mixture with a little milk to make a stiff dough.

Roll out dough on lightly floured surface to a thickness of about 1/4" and cut into 2" rounds with a cutter.

Cook on a greased griddle or heavy based frying pan over a low heat for about 3 minutes each side until golden brown.

Lay cooked Welsh cakes on a clean tea towel and sprinkle with sugar, then fold tea towel over the top to keep them warm. Serve with butter if desired.

(These freeze very well and make great lunchbox treats!)

Eat. . . Peanut butter cookies

This has to be the easiest biscuit recipe ever!! It would even be easy for a 3 year old, and I wonder why it has taken me all these years to get around to trying it?! I think probably because it looks so utterly simple that I didn't trust that it would work. . . and yet it does! I made these last week and they are some of the most delicious biscuits I have ever tasted. . . an instant hit with all the family, and even my work colleagues :) As an added bonus, they are dairy and wheat-free, so it's good to bear that in mind if you have someone with special dietary requirements coming round for coffee! Here's the recipe:

Peanut Butter Cookies (12 - 15)


1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 cup caster sugar
1 large egg

Mix these three ingredients together. Spoon the mixture onto a well greased/lined baking tray. Leave room for them to spread. Press down each blob of dough with a fork. Bake for about 15 mins at 170C.

That's it! I still can't believe that something so incredibly simple can taste so good! Of course, you could include choc chips, raisins or other enhancements if you felt moved to do so, but they are perfectly delicious as they are. Enjoy!!

Love. . . Baking

A well-worn page from my first ever recipe book, in my own handwriting

If you've had much of a browse through this blog then you have probably already realised that I love baking! I very much like cooking in general, but I absolutely LOVE baking!! This all began as a very small child, "helping" my mum bake cakes and scones, biscuits and pastries, with a finger stuck in the batter here and a stir of the mixture there, followed by the pleading request:"Can I lick the bowl, mum?!" At eight years old, in 1979, I realised I wanted a recipe book of my very own. By this time, I didn't live with my mum any more, but with my dad who was (and still is!) an excellent and inventive home cook. But my mum was more of a baker, and I wanted to be too! So one day when we were staying with her on holiday, she bought me a small notebook and I set about decorating the cover and then writing in some of my mum's tried and tested recipes: Nanna Parker's potato cakes, Ginger snaps, Idiot biscuits, Chocolate brownies, Daphnes sticky bread and Nanna Parker's fruit scones were the first entries in the book. 

Ginger snaps made to the recipe above

Back home again in Wales with my dad and brother, it became my self-appointed duty to bake something every Sunday afternoon. In those days we always had a big Sunday lunch, not necessarily a Sunday roast, but always a big substantial meal with main course and pudding, that dad would cook for us and have on the table about 1 pm. Once the meal was finished, it was his chance to sit down and put his feet up while my brother and I took charge of clearing the table and washing up the dishes. Finally it was my favourite part of the day and I could bake something for "Sweet Tea". This tradition came from my dad's parents and meant that each Sunday teatime we just had bread and butter, and a selection of cake, scones, crumpets, toasted teacakes etc. No "proper meal" on Sunday evenings, as the theory was that we had had such a big meal at lunchtime we wouldn't need it! Needless to say, that was my favourite meal of the week, and I loved baking something different each Sunday afternoon for Sweet Tea, a tradition that carried on well into my teenage years, even once my dad had re-married and we became a much larger "blended" family.

One of our recipe book shelves in the kitchen

These days, my absolute go-to baking books are both by Alexa Johnston. "Ladies, a plate" and "A Second Helping" are the most well-used recipe books on our kitchen bookshelf, and if you check out this link you will find a wealth of free recipes from those two books! Of course, we do far more savoury cooking than sweet baking at home, but in most cases the main meals are made without recipes, whereas the alchemical mysteries of baking require a more precise approach. Two years ago I went to the "Writers and Readers Festival" at Founders' Park in Nelson and heard Alexa speak. She was so thoroughly entertaining and engaging, that when I heard she was coming to Nelson on 2nd September to promote her latest book "What's for Pudding?" I knew I must be there!

As ever, she was a delight to listen to, and as part of our ticket price we were offered two puddings from her new book: Lemon sago (pictured below) and Semolina halva. I have never had sago before, and lets just say it was "interesting" - I can certainly see why it is often referred to as "frogspawn"! 

Lemon sago (Alexa in background)

But there are plenty of very appealing recipes in this cookbook, and as in both her other books, Alexa has meticulously researched the genealogy of these old classics and trawled through countless old community cookbooks and other vintage recipe books to bring us these recipes, sometimes with a modern twist. I love how each recipe is preceded by some social history notes about its origin and development over the years. If you like the sound of apricot ice cream (1940), pistachio and cardamom kulfi (1959), melon and pineapple salad (1950s), cup custards (1861), sticky date pudding (1980s) or flaming baked Alaska (1967) this could be the cookbook for you! If you would like to read a review of the book (including a couple of recipes for Simple Orange Jelly and Chocolate Fudge Pudding, click "Why Pudding Still Matters." Thanks to KathyR from ravelry for the link.

As Alexa said on Friday, "Nobody NEEDS pudding. But by making a pudding you are showing love to those you make it for, and if anyone makes a pudding for you, you can be pretty sure they love you!"

Eat. . . Baked cheesecake

Baked cheesecake with a generous topping of homemade lemon curd

By popular demand from my work colleagues, today I am sharing a recipe for baked cheesecake, which I made over the weekend. The recipe was demonstrated as a "masterclass" with chef Donna Hay, on an episode of Australian Masterchef and I wrote the recipe down by hand. I took some cheesecake into work today to share, and was inundated with requests for the recipe so here we are:

Whilst I was on Donna Hay's website just now, I discovered that she has the recipe available there too, so here's the link for that - much easier to read and print out or email than my handwritten scrawl! As you can see from the photo at the top, our favourite way to eat this cheesecake is with a big dollop of homemade lemon curd on top. This recipe is definitely going to be kept for a rare treat though, as the ingredients were pretty pricey and it's hardly healthy eating. But it's sooooooooo delicious :)

Eat. . . When life gives you lemons. . .

. . . make lemon curd! And little lemon cakes/muffins!

I was half way through making lemon curd yesterday morning when that well-known saying sprang to mind - "When life gives you lemons. . . make lemonade!" Saturday was indeed a lemon of a day. To quote Sonny Jim: "It sucked!" But it was purely coincidental that I started making lemon curd on Sunday morning - just a need to do something useful, over which I had control (albeit tenuous at the point where you add cold beaten eggs to hot melted butter, lemon and sugar!) So an enjoyable morning of lemoniness was to be my diversion yesterday. . . first I made the lemon curd and then when faced with all the lemon rind residue in the bottom of the sieve, I knew it was far too tasty to throw out, so made little lemon cakes instead!

Here's how. . .

Lemon Curd/Honey/Butter/Cheese

4 lemons
12 oz caster sugar
6 oz butter, chopped
4 large eggs

First, attempt to sterilise your jam jars by heating at 150C in the oven for 15 mins or filling with boiling water.

Put the lemon juice, zest, sugar and butter in a ceramic or glass bowl over a pan of simmering water (or a double boiler if you happen to have such a thing!) Don't let the water touch the bottom of the bowl.



Stir it until the sugar dissolves and butter melts. Add a bit more juice if you think it tastes too sweet.

Beat the eggs in another bowl until well combined. Now for the scary bit - add a little bit of the hot mixture to the eggs, stir well then add the whole lot to the hot lemon, sugar and butter mixture. At this point you need to hope desperately that it won't curdle. If it does, try plunging the bowl into cold water and stirring like crazy.

Assuming all goes well, and it doesn't curdle (I've made it three times in the last year and it's never curdled yet!) stir it constantly until the mixture thickens. It will thicken more in the jar so don't expect it get to the final texture. This will take between 5 and 20 minutes depending on how fast you are heating the mixture (ie how daring you are being!) but DON'T LET IT BOIL!!



Once your bowl of lemon loveliness has reached the desired thickness, pour it through a sieve into a jug.



Next, pour the sieved lemon curd from the jug into your sterilised jars and screw on the lids. I did a double mixture and this is how much it yielded. . .



Store in the fridge and eat within 2-3 weeks. Delicious on bread, toast, scones, as a sponge cake filling, inside lemon muffins, on ice cream etc etc. Good luck making it last 3 weeks!

You will be left with a lot of lemon rind and maybe a few small eggy bits in your sieve. . .



Of course, you could just put this on your compost heap, but I couldn't bear to part with all that lemony loveliness, so decided to dig out an old lemon cake recipe from one of my handwritten recipe books of years gone by. I put the mixture in muffin tins instead of a cake tin though and omitted the lemon syrup glaze, as that suits us better for packed lunch treats straight from the freezer.

Lemon Cake

175 g/6 oz margarine
175 g/6 oz caster sugar
2 eggs
4 tblsps milk
175 g/6 oz SR flour
Finely grated zest and juice of 1 large lemon (or ALL your lemon curd residue from the sieve!)
1 tblsp icing sugar

Heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Lightly grease and line  a 2lb loaf tin.
Cream marg and sugar till light and fluffy then gradually beat in lightly whisked eggs and milk. Lightly fold in sieved flour and lemon zest (or lemon curd residue).
Place in prepared tin and bake for 30 mins, then slightly reduce oven temp and bake for further 30 mins or until cake is golden brown, firm to touch and beginning to shrink from sides of tin. Mix lemon juice and icing sugar and pour over cake straight away. If using muffin tin cook for 15 - 20 mins only.





Yum!

Eat. . . Afghan biscuits

My homemade Afghan biscuits

Afghans, at least in their biscuit form, were completely unknown to me until I set foot in Aotearoa/New Zealand back in 2002. But since then they have become one of my firm favourites! A deliciously short and crumbly chocolate biscuit studded with cornflakes for extra bite, enveloped in a rich and decadent chocolate icing and a walnut half to top it all off. Yum! If you don't have walnuts in your store cupboard, don't let that stop you - they are almost as delicious without!

Our tins have been looking very empty recently so this afternoon I spent a happy time in the kitchen baking Afghans. My recipe is based on the one in "Ladies, a Plate" by Alexa Johnston, but you will find an Afghan recipe in every Edmonds Cookery Book, and according to Alexa,  Afghans have opened the Edmonds' biscuit recipe section since 1953! No doubt there are plenty of other Afghan recipes to be found in other corners of the internet, but here's the recipe I use:

Afghans

For about 24 small biscuits:
6 oz/170 g butter (Use margarine at your peril!!)
1/2 cup/ 100 g brown sugar
1 1/2 cups/180 g Self-raising flour
3 tblsps cocoa powder
2 scant cups/60 g scrunched cornflakes

Preheat oven to 180C/350F and line two trays with baking paper. Soften the butter, then cream it with the sugar until pale and fluffy. Add dry ingredients, mix well, then knead in smooshed up cornflakes. Put tablespoonsful of mixture onto the trays, leaving a small space around each. They don't spread much. Flatten slightly with your thumb or a fork and bake for around 15 mins. Cool on wire rack.

For icing:
3 tblsps water
3 tblsps caster sugar
3 tblsps butter
3 tblsps cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups/190 g icing sugar
Around 24 walnut halves (optional)

Heat the water, caster sugar and butter in a pan until butter melts. Simmer for 1 minute to form a syrup. Beating all the time, add most of the syrup to a small mixing bowl containing the sifted icing sugar and cocoa powder. Add last bit of syrup if necessary. You are aiming to make a smooth, glossy, fudgy icing. Put a teaspoonful of icing on each biscuit and (if using), quickly press a walnut half into the icing. Leave to set.

Store in an airtight tin/plastic box. These stay fresh for 3 - 4 days if you can make them last that long!

Eat. . . Easter Biscuits

This year's Easter biscuits, baked 22nd April.

I have memories of my Dad making these biscuits almost every Easter, way back when. . . way back when I was a child living in South Wales. It turns out that Easter Biscuits are a tradition based in the South-West of England, which makes sense as that is where he is from. Unfortunately, I don't have the exact recipe that dad used, but this year and last I have used a variation on the one in my "A Second Helping - More from Ladies, a Plate" book by Alexa Johnston, with a nod to the Easter Bunny Biscuits recipe I found online. I also more than doubled the amount of spice and lemon used in either recipe, for extra flavour. I found an excellent blog called "Baking for Britain" which has lots of history on the origin of Easter Biscuits as well as a recipe for Sedgemoor Easter Cakes (which are actually biscuits!) Sadly it seems that the "Baking for Britain" blog ground to a halt last November, but there are still lots of archives to trawl through. . .

Anyway, here's the recipe I used:

Easter Biscuits

10 oz/280 g butter, softened

8 oz/230 g caster sugar (and extra for the tops)

2 tablespoons grated lemon rind

4 egg yolks (keep one egg white to brush on the tops, and use the rest in a pavlova!!)

1 lb/450 g plain white flour

3/4 cup currants

3 tsps ground cinnamon

• Preheat oven to 190C/375F and line several baking sheets with baking paper. 
• Cream butter, sugar and lemon rind together then add egg yolks and mix well. 
• Mix in flour, currants and cinnamon until you have a stiff paste. Refrigerate the dough for at least 15 mins to make it more workable.
• Roll out thinly (about 2-3 mm thick) and cut out large circles or Easter shapes from the dough. 
• Place biscuits on baking -apered tins, then brush biscuit tops with lightly whisked egg white and sprinkle generously with sugar.
• Bake for 15 mins or so, aiming for a light golden colour. 
• These keep well in an airtight tin.
• Enjoy!

Eat. . . Louise Cake

Louise cake with plum jam, baked 12.04.11

This is a real Kiwi classic. I had never even heard of it till moving to New Zealand back in 2002. Oh, horrors - 31 years without Louise Cake in my life! I was almost put off it forever though, when I first saw it on sale at a café. The label in the chiller cabinet proudly proclaimed "Lousie Cake" and I wondered why on earth anyone would want to eat it if it was so lousie! Always one for living dangerously, I braved a piece and was smitten! It is a tray-baked slice with a tender shortcake base, spread with a tart red jam and topped with a lightly browned coconut meringue. It's a big hit with all of us in our family, and one of Sonny Jim's friends came round to play yesterday and he loved it too.

There are so many recipes for Louise Cake available, but the following one is my favourite. It's from Alexa Johnston's wonderful book of traditional NZ home baking: "Ladies a Plate." I highly recommend that book by the way, it is one of my most frequently used recipe books. Alexa gives lots of details in her book re the social history of this recipe (and all the others she shares), but here are the basic details. . .


LOUISE CAKE

For the base:
2.5 oz/70 g butter
2 oz/55 g sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tblsp lemon juice
5 oz/140 g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

For the topping:
5 tblsps raspberry jam (or other tart, red jam - I used my homemade plum jam this time)
2 egg whites
4 oz/115 g caster sugar
2 oz/55 g desiccated coconut

• Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Grease/line a shallow 12 x 8 "/30 x 21 cm tin. Soften the butter.
• Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add egg yolks and beat well. Add lemon juice, sift flour and baking powder over and mix to stiff dough.
• Press dough evenly into prepared tin. At this stage it will only be a thin layer, but it puffs up during cooking. Spread the jam evenly over the base.
• Beat egg whites till stiff, then gently fold in caster sugar and coconut using a metal spoon.
• Spread coconut meringue mixture over the jam, trying to keep it an even thickness. Sprinkle with a little extra coconut if you like. 
• Bake for 25 mins or until the coconut meringue is just turning golden brown.
• Remove from oven and cut into squares or fingers while still warm. Leave in tin to cool. Store airtight. 

If you haven't tried this before, give it a go ;-) It's number 6 in the Edmonds Cookbook "New Zealand's top 10 favourite baked goods" according to something I read on the internet. And you know you can always trust what you read on the internet, eh?!

Eat. . . a glut of apples and baking

Local apple tree, March 2011

Autumn is really setting in here, and it seems everywhere you look there are the new season's crisp, fresh apples available for a bargain price. It helps that we live in one of New Zealand's major apple producing areas. Just a few minutes walk away from home is an old "Cool Store" from the Apple and Pear Marketing Board of yesteryear. In addition to all the cheap apples available at roadside stalls, one of my kind and generous work colleagues has provided us with several bags of various breeds of cooking and eating apples from her trees, and one day we came home from dog walk to find a bag of beautiful green apples behind the front door (still haven't worked out who that kind benefactor was). . . so you can see that we have had a rather welcome glut of apples recently.

Of course, our first line of attack was to stew up huge saucepans of delicious stewed apple. Great for adding to porridge with cinnamon or berries, mixing with natural yogurt, or adding to breakfast muesli. We usually freeze some of it it in small portions for use later in the year. Stewed apple/apple sauce is also a delicious addition to these Choc-apple Brownies.

Choc-apple brownies

Here's the link to the recipe, which I found in the New Zealand Healthy Food Guide magazine, to which we subscribe. Thankfully the H.F.G. also have most of their recipes online. . . you might find some other interesting ones while you are over there. The only change I make to the recipe is that I don't include the walnuts as they aren't popular with all the members of our family. We also use dairy free choc chips, as a hangover from when two of us were strictly dairy-free. The use of stewed apple sauce replaces the fat content, and gives a delicious moistness to the Brownie.

Next up are Sugar-topped Apple Muffins, which are based on a recipe I got from About.com.

Sugar-topped Apple Muffins

2 cups plain flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
---
1 cup milk
1 egg
1/4 cup vegetable oil or melted butter/marg
---
1 cup tart grated/finely chopped apple
---
Small amount of melted butter & sugar for topping

Preheat oven to 200C/400F. Grease a 12 cup muffin tin or use paper cake cases. Combine first set of ingredients in a bowl. Whisk second set of ingredients in another bowl or measuring jug. Add apple and wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Mix until only just moistened. DO NOT OVER-BEAT (this will toughen the mixture.) Spoon into prepared muffin tin. Bake for about 20 mins, or until baked through. As soon as they are out of the oven, brush the tops with melted butter and dip them in a bowl of sugar, to give a lovely crunchy sugary top.

German Apple Cake

A real family favourite is German Apple Cake, which started life as a free recipe from allrecipes.com, but then I adapted it a bit to double the quantities but proportionately reduce the oil and sugar, increase the spices and grate rather than chop the apple. Here's my version:

4 eggs
400 ml oil
600 g sugar
4 tsps cinnamon
2 tsps salt
2 tsps vanilla essence
500 g self-raising flour (or a mix of wholemeal and SR, with 1 tsp baking powder per 100g wholemeal flour used)
1 kg apples - 900g grated and 100 g finely chopped

Preheat oven to 175C/350F. Grease and flour or line a large rectangular roasting tin or cake tin. Beat oil and eggs with electric mixer till creamy. Add sugar and vanilla and beat well. Slowly add flour, salt and cinnamon to the wet mixtureFold in the apples by hand. The mixture will be very thick. Spread mixture into prepared tin. Bake for around 45 mins or until cake tests done. Cool in tin, then cut into slices and sprinkle with icing sugar.

Last but not least, it's Sonny Jim's all-time favourite muffin recipe. . . ABC Muffins (A for Apple, B for Banana and C for Chocolate.) He has loved these muffins since he was a pre-schooler. This recipe is from the book "School Lunches and After School Snacks" by Alison and Simon Holst. As usual I couldn't resist altering it a bit - this time swapping half of the white flour for wholemeal. More tasty and substantial! I usually make a double mixture, but give you single quantities below:

ABC Muffins

3 mashed ripe bananas (from supply in freezer if you have them!)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup canola oil
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 apple, grated with skin on
1 cup self-raising flour
1 cup wholemeal flour
1 tsp baking powder

Heat oven to 200C/400F. In a large bowl, mix together mashed bananas, sugar, salt, oil, egg and milk. Stir in choc chips and grated apple. Shake flour through a sieve onto everything else and fold together until just dampened. Don't over-mix once flour has gone in or your muffins will be tough little bullets! Spoon into prepared muffin tin. Bake for 10 - 15 mins until golden brown.

So, that's how we deal with a welcome glut of apples. . . how about you? Any tried and tested recipes or other ideas? Please put them in the comments ;-)

Eat. . . Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Here's one I prepared earlier. . .

This is the perfect treat food for those times when you are inundated with zucchini/courgettes, and it is a good way to use up "the one that got away" - ie the zucchini which somehow managed to fly beneath the radar and evade capture until it was the size of a newborn baby! It's also a good way of getting vegetables into unsuspecting children, although I have to admit that any health benefits from vegetable consumption are out-weighed by all the fat, sugar and chocolate involved! Just a tip, the first time you present these to small children, don't mention the zucchini! Years ago, when I first told Sonny Jim about the new recipe I had found, he said something along the lines of "Ewwwww, gross!!" A few days later when I told him there was "chocolate brownie" for afternoon tea he ate it delightedly. Only afterwards did I confess it was in fact the dreaded "chocolate zucchini cake" and he has loved it ever since!

The recipe is from the book "School lunches and after school snacks" by Alison and Simon Holst. I often make a double mixture and freeze most of it for occasional lunch box or afternoon tea snacks. . .

Yummy Zucchini Chocolate Cake

125 g butter/margarine 

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

3 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/2 cup yogurt - any type

2 1/2 cups plain flour

3 cups/ 350 g grated zucchini

1/4 cup cocoa powder

2 tsps baking soda

2 tsps cinnamon or mixed spice

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup chocolate chips 

Heat oven to 170˙C. Line bottom and sides of 25 cm square brownie tin or roasting pan, with two crosswise strips of baking paper.

Beat softened butter and sugars in mixer or food processor until light and creamy. Mix in eggs, vanilla, yogurt and 1/2 cup of measured flour, then mix in grated zucchini. Sift in remaining flour and next 4 ingredients. Stir gently, then pour into the tin. Sprinkle with choc chips. 

Bake for 45 mins, or until centre feels firm and skewer comes out clean. Cool on rack in tin. Refrigerate or freeze wrapped pieces. 

(Or put a load of slices in an ice cream tub and bury in the chest freezer!)

I'd love to hear how you get on if you try it!