What do you do with a zucchini?

...when you don't like vegetables!?!?  You make cake!

This time of year, the gardens are growing and the folks that started out their gardens a few months ago are starting to reap the harvest!  My friend Jackie brought in some HUGE zucchinis from her garden to share and I couldn't pass it up!  So i grabbed a nice fat one and brought it home. Then stared at it for 5 days.  What am i going to do with a zucchini the size of my forearm??  So I remembered back to the early years of my previous marriage to when my ex brought home zucchinis one day.  He never stepped foot in the kitchen except to make saturday morning pancakes or to make zucchini cake!  So that's what I did tonight.  My first zucchini cake!!  Of course I counted on my good friends at allrecipes.com to hook me up with a good recipe.  One of the greatest things about allrecipes.com is the rating system.  Since the site has been around for sooooooo long (I think I only had 2 kids back when I first discovered it... as allcookies.com or something like that) the number of people who submit recipes, try recipes and are good enough to rate and comment make this the best site to find tried and true recipes.  This recipe is called Zucchini Cake I.  4 1/2 star rating, 41 reviews, and over 700 people have saved this recipe so I knew it must be a good one.


ZUCCHINI CAKE I

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 cups white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
• 3 cups grated zucchini

Frosting

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Lightly grease and flour three 9 inch round cake pans.
2. In a medium size bowl combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, white sugar, and salt. Mix well.
3. In another bowl beat eggs, vegetable oil, and 1 teaspoon vanilla together. Pour into egg mixture into the flour mixture and mix well. Stir in the shredded zucchini. Pour batter into prepared pans.
4. Bake at 325 degrees F (165 degrees C) for 25 minutes. Allow cakes to cool in pans. Stack and frost into a 3 layer cake using Cream Cheese Frosting.
5. To Make Frosting: Cream together the cream cheese, butter or margarine. Add the confectioner's sugar, a little at a time. Add 2 teaspoons vanilla and mix well. Spread on cool cake layers.