Pinspiration: Double chocolate cake

This is the second installment of my new feature -- Pinspiration -- in which I make some of the recipes I have pinned in Pinterest and share some love for the original creators.

If you follow me on Pinterest, you'll see that I pin a lot of baked goods recipes. Not a lot of over-the-top baked goods, mostly breads and breakfasty items.

But sometimes you just need chocolate cake, right?

This recipe was actually described as "healthy zucchini brownies." Um, let's just be clear: these are neither brownies nor healthy. But they are less bad for you than many desserts, given the use of whole wheat flour, applesauce and shredded zucchini (just ignore the large amount of sugar and chocolate chips!).

I guess "less-bad-for-you cake" wasn't as good a title.

It was also described as "super moist and rich in chocolate." That much is true -- in spades.

Which is why I've entitled this post "double chocolate cake." It's easy to pull together and you could jazz it up with some nice powdered sugar dusted over the top for presentation. I didn't do that; frankly, there's not a lot of presentation of desserts around Casa de Ninj.

Also, if you're into the whole hiding-veggies-in-baked-goods game (it's a fun one), you could swap the zucchini in this recipe for beets, which would only enhance the deep, dark color.

So have some cake -- courtesy of The Baltic Maid, a German ex-pat living in the United States.

If you visit, tell her The Ninj sent you.

Double Chocolate Cake

(from The Baltic Maid)


Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup chocolate chips (whatever kind you like)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl, whisk together the first five ingredients (eggs through applesauce). In another bowl, whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and cinnamon.  Combine the wet and the dry and mix thoroughly. Fold in the zucchini and the chocolate chips.

Pour the batter into a prepared 8 x 8 pan and bake for about half an hour, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool in pan completely on a wire rack.

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www.yankeekitchenninja.com
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