Gluten-free Chocolate Zucchini Quick Bread

This recipe is egg-heavy, because I find we do better with a lot of protein along with our sugars. With all the eggs, it's sort of a brownie/cake/quiche cross.

This cake is not super-sweet; I'll even serve it for breakfast. If you like your coffee cake or dessert heavily sweet you may want to add an extra 1/4 cup of honey or other sweetener, or mix in chocolate chips.

For the eggless version, try my Chocolate Zucchini Cake recipe with regular or gluten-free flour.

Preheat over to 350 degrees F. Oil or grease a 9" x 13" pan (I used a glass casserole dish; a metal pan may cook faster)

Peel zucchini and cut into chunks--about 2 small or 1 large zucchini.

Sift together in large bowl:

3/4 cup brown rice flour (or any other gluten-free flour)
3/4 cup ivory teff flour (or any other GF flour)
3/4 cup tapioca flour
1/2 Tablespoon (1 and 1/2 teaspoons) baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

In pitcher of large blender, combine:

1/2 cup plain yogurt or applesauce (you can substitute safe chocolate or vanilla yogurt, pureed pears or a dairy substitute)
Enough zucchini chunks to make 2 cups of puree

Blend up the yogurt and zucchini, adding more zucchini until it makes a total of 2 and 1/2 cups combined puree.

Add to blender:

1/4 to 1/3 cup oil (I used grapeseed oil, but any mildly flavored oil or melted butter will work)
1 cup honey
6 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla (optional--omit if you are avoiding corn, gluten, alcohol or fermented foods and are not sure if your vanilla is free of these items)


Process zucchini mixture in blender until smooth.

Pour zucchini mixture into dry ingredients and mix just until blended. Fold in 1/2 to 1 cup nuts or chocolate chips if desired. Pour batter into greased pan and bake for 45 to 55 minutes or until a toothpick comes out almost clean.

Let it cool for a few minutes before trying to cut it, but you can serve it a bit warm if desired. Your family won't even know they're eating their vegetables for dessert!

Colored Birthday Cake

Oil two 8 x 8 inch cake pans or one larger rectangular pan (I think I used a 9 x 13 pan).

Combine and set aside:
1/4 cup plus 1 and 1/2 tablespoons flaxseed meal
3/4 cup boiling water

Sift together:
3 cups flour (cake flour would be best, but I used King Arthur All-Purpose Unbleached flour)
2 teaspoons baking powder (I used Hain Featherweight, which is made with potato starch)
1 tsp salt (RealSalt)
1 packet Kosher for Passover gelatin dessert mix (such as Ko-Jel or Kedem)--I used raspberry flavor Kedem (Note: gelatin is not an excititoxin-safe ingredient)

Cream together:
3/4 cup soft butter (you could substitute oil--I would probably reduce to 1/2 cup next time if subbing oil)
2 cups sugar (C & H/Domino's is pure cane sugar)

Blend into sugar mixture:
3/4 cup rice milk (Rice Dream Original Unenriched)
1/2 tsp vanilla (optional--I used more like 1 tsp homemade vanilla that was essentially a vanilla bean cut up and simmered in water)
Cooled flaxseed mixture

Stir together wet and dry ingredients and blend well, then pour batter into pan and smooth flat.

Bake at 350 degrees until toothpick comes out clean (about 50 minutes for a 9 x 13 pan).

Top with berries or whatever you like to put on cake. This time I made a Kosher For Passover vanilla pudding mix with half the amount of rice milk called for, added some K for P marshmallows while stirring over low heat, and then added pureed strawberries. It made a thin mixture that we spooned over each piece of cake and topped with a K for P marshmallow.

Parsnip Cake

Tender, moist, sweet and delicious!

You've heard of carrot cake, but have you ever thought of trying parsnip cake? It has a sweeter, milder flavor than carrot cake. The parsnip, spices and brown sugar give it a special, almost caramel-like taste. If you don't tell your kids, they'll never guess they're eating their vegetables.

My family dislikes parsnips, so I'm always trying to find ways to disguise them. I baked this cake for company tomorrow. What started out as "just a taste" tonight turned out to be the family devouring half the cake before we enforced a limit.

This cake creates a bit of a crispy crust on top and is good without frosting. If you can tolerate dairy products, some lightly sweetened whipped cream would probably complement the flavors nicely.

If desired it can be eaten warm, straight from the oven.

Parsnip Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix together and set aside, stirring occasionally:
1/4 cup flaxseed meal
1 cup boiling water

Oil a 9 x 13-ish cake pan and lightly dust with flour.

Blend together:
2 and 1/2 cups whole grain flour
2 Tablespoons arrowroot powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder (I used Featherweight, or see baking powder substitutes here)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 and 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon fresh ginger (I put mine through a garlic press instead of dicing it. If you don't have fresh ginger, try 1/4 teaspoon of powdered ginger.)

In a separate container, cream together
1 cup oil (I used rice bran oil)
1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar (C & H is pure cane sugar, free of corn)

Add to sugar mixture and blend well:
1/2 cup water
Flax seed mixture

To dry ingredients, add liquid ingredients and
3 cups grated parsnip

Mix it all together, pour into the pan and smooth batter flat. Bake at 350 until toothpick comes out clean, approximately 45 minutes.

**
For the flour, I used 1 and 1/2 cups King Arthur Traditional Whole Wheat and 1 cup White Whole Wheat flour; if using gluten-free flour with low binding properties, try 2 cups of a flour such as brown rice or amaranth flour, and 1/2 cup tapioca or sweet rice flour.

If you use a liquid sweetener, you may need to leave out the 1/2 cup of water.

Cream Cheese Icing

Here's a cream cheese frosting recipe that's egg free, free of refined sugars and corn-free if you leave out the vanilla or use corn-safe flavoring.

From Desserts by Sue Gregg (Eating Better Cookbooks)

Icing:

Blend together until smooth and frost completely cooled cookies or cake with:
4 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup plain nonfat yogurt
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Banana Sweet Potato Frosting

This icing recipe is from Bridget at Never Here Again. It's egg-free, dairy-free, corn-free and free of refined sugars--hard to find in a frosting recipe!

Mix together:

1 cup mashed sweet potato
1 ripe banana (could also use amasake)
2 T maple syrup or brown rice syrup
1 t orange juice

We can't have sweet potato or maple syrup, so if anyone tries this please let me know how it is.

Carrot-Pineapple Cake

I was supposed to bring a dessert to an event a few weeks ago, so I made this carrot cake. It's pretty healthy and free of our allergens. I even gave my kids some for breakfast the next morning.

Everyone loved the cake and wanted the recipe.

Carrot Cake
recipe from Desserts by Sue Gregg (Eating Better Cookbooks)

"Light, tender, moist, and not too sweet."

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Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease 9" x 13" or bundt pan

Cream together:
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
3/4 cup honey

Blend in:
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups shredded carrot
1 to 1 1/4 cups crushed pineapple, drained (I used pineapple in its own juice)

Blend dry ingredients thoroughly in separate bowl:
2 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt

Thoroughly blend dry ingredients into creamed ingredients

Mix in:
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1 cup raisins (optional)

Pour into greased pan and bake 35 to 45 minutes, until knife comes clean out of center.

Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan.

Cool thoroughly before frosting. . . .  

Makes 18 to 24 servings.

I substituted orange juice for the vanilla, or you could just leave the vanilla out to make it corn-free.

I didn't have crushed pineapple, and my can of pineapple was 24 oz. in chunks, so I just drained the chunks and put them in my food processor to crush them. I put in the whole can even though it was a little more than the recipe called for. Then the batter didn't seem quite moist enough, so I added just a bit of the pineapple juice to it.

I used King Arthur's "White" Whole Wheat Flour, and left out the walnuts.

Brown Sugar Cake

This brown sugar cake is a recipe from Tastes of Country, a cookbook by Frances A. Gillette. Almost every recipe I've tried from this cookbook has been fabulous--I highly recommend it if you can get your hands on a copy.

Quick Cake
A rich brown sugar taste. Rose Merne makes this cake often.

1/2 cup softened butter
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 2/3 cups flour
3 tsp. baking powder (info. on safe baking powder ) 

1 tsp. vanilla

Put ingredients into bowl in order given and do not stir until all have been added. Beat 3 minutes. Bake in buttered pan for 35-45 minutes at 350 degrees. Nuts or raisins may be added, if desired.

I sometimes cut down on the sugar a bit, and I always substitute rice milk for the milk. C & H brand brown sugar seems to be corn-free, and if you can't find corn-free vanilla you could substitute maple syrup or just leave it out.

Whole-wheat or an alternative flour could be used in this recipe. Depending on your needs, you could probably substitute shortening, margarine or oil for the butter and still get decent results.

This cake is wonderful by itself or with frosting, ice cream or whipped topping.