Courgette and Sultana Cake

My friend gave me some courgettes and I wanted to make a cake with some of them. I had a look on the internet, but nothing really appealed, so I hunted through a couple of old baking cookery books and found a carrot cake with raisins, so adapted this. I fancied making a ring cake, but it can be made in a normal round cake tin.


Preheat oven 180C./gas4
Grease a 20cm ring mould well with butter or oil.

Beat together 125g butter and 150g caster sugar till nice and fluffy. Then add 2 beaten eggs and 2 tspn vanilla extract. Add 220g grated courgettes [about 11/2 medium courgettes] and 60g sultanas [or other dried fruit]. Mix together then fold in 225g sr flour.
Spoon into tin and smooth top. Bake for 35-40 mins till golden.
Leave cake in tin for about 10 mins then turn onto a wire rack.

I wanted a creamy topping, so made some vanilla buttercream. I wanted to try a method I'd found in a magazine; it's more complicated than the simple buttercream of icing sugar and butter, but hopefully it would taste less cloying.

Put 110g caster sugar and 85ml water in a pan and stir over a low heat till the mixture boils and the sugar's melted. Turn the heat down and simmer for 5 mins without stirring. Cool.
Beat 125g butter and 2 tspn vanilla extract together till light and fluffy, then pour in the sugar syrup, beating all the time till your mixture is smooth and fluffy.

Spread the mixture over the top and sides of your cake. I used some of the orange peel I made recently to decorate the top.



It's a moist cake, but not too moist, as you sometimes get with vegetable cakes. The topping was nothing like the usual butter cream. Yes it was sweet, but I didn't find it cloying; it was smooth and melted in your mouth. I'll use it again when I need a sweet topping. Liked the cake texture - not too dense, and  the fruit gave an added bite.



Comments

Suelle said…
That's a really interesting buttercream - I find the usual buttercreams too sweet, so this might suit my tastes better.

I agree with what you say about cakes with vegetables in sometimes being too dense and moist - it's an art to getting it right!

With an orange peel decoration, I think I'd have added some orange zest to the cake too, but it looks very good.
Snowy said…
Will add some orange zest if I make this again, Suelle. Thanks.
Karen S Booth said…
I DO love a good old-fashioned sultana cake and this one is as good as it gets Snowy!
I made courgette and sultana cupcakes and loved it - thought it gave a rich and moist texture. Your cake looks great - I love the flecks of green!
Sounds very good to me. As usual I've had a bit of a courgette glut this year but I didn't get round to making a courgette cake. I've missed out.

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