Chocolate Chip Courgette Cake Recipe

Provamel, a brand who has been providing dairy-free alternatives since 1983 (it’s only a year younger than me), challenged me to create two recipes using their new Natural Sugars-Free Soya Alternative Yoghurt. I love challenges! Especially where food is involved. Now, my baking skills aren’t so great, but for both recipes, I decided to create sweet treats, as opposed to savoury…

Since I also like chocolate cake but rarely have it due to the sugar content, I thought the Provamel Agave Soya yoghurt would be a good ingredient for this. I also wanted to spice it up a bit, so as well as warming spices there’s also courgette… I love raw courgette but not cooked courgette. Well, not unless it’s in a chocolate cake, that is… I’d heard that courgette is pretty good for moist cakes and good news, is that it’s true – as someone who’s not much of a baker, this turned out surprisingly well! I did tweak the recipe slightly – it definitely does need some sugar – which I included as honey. Bee Mercy Raw Oak honey is one of my favourites.

I urge you, try out this recipe and let me know what it’s like!

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cup plain gluten-free flour
• 75g (3/4 bar) of Lindt dark chocolate, grated or finely chopped
• 4 heaped tbsp cacao powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 nutmeg
• Pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup Provamel Soya Yoghurt sweetened with agave
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1 tsp vanilla extra
• 1 large courgette, grated
• 1/2 cup coconut oil and some for greasing the tin

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180’C and line a square tin with coconut oil or baking sheet.
2. Mix the flour, chocolate, cacao, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together in a bowl.
3. Stir the honey, coconut oil, eggs and vanilla together in a separate, large bowl.
4. Add the dry mixture to the wet and stir thoroughly. Then, slowly add in the courgette and yoghurt, stirring as you go until everything is well combined.
5. Pour the batter into your tin and bake for approximately 1 hour. Test every now and again to see if a wooden skewer comes out clean. Once done, remove from the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes.
6. Remove from the tin and cut into slices. Serve immediately.

So what did I make for my second recipe? You can find out over at Healthy Living London…