Our amazing Aimee made this epic cake and bought it in to work for a sweet treat after a long day of packing orders and we are OBSESSED! Moist, delicious and easily adapted to be gluten free, this layered Zucchini cake with toasted walnut pieces and classic Cream Cheese icing is an absolute winner, guaranteed to have you reaching for another slice!
What you need:
For the cake
2 cups grated zucchini
1 1/2 cups walnuts (toasted and chopped)
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
4 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 cups high grade flour (or sub your fave GF flour)
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp salt
For the icing
500gm cream cheese
Juice of half a lemon
2 cups icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
Pinch of salt
What to do:
Preheat your oven to 180°C and grease two 20cm cake tins, lining the bottoms with baking paper.
In a large bowl, whisk the oil and eggs together, then add the sugars and continue whisking until you reach a smooth consistency, with no lumps left. Whisk in the vanilla essence, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and baking soda.
Begin to fold in in the sifted flour using a spatula, and when half combined add the zucchini and walnuts and continue folding gently, until just combined.
Divide the batter between your two cake tins and bake in the centre of the oven for 35-40 minutes, or until the tops spring back when lightly touched and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake indicates it is done (moist crumbs clinging to the skewer are fine, just not wet batter).
Remove the cakes from the oven and let them cool in their tins for 15mins, then invert them onto cooling racks to finish cooling off (they need to be completely cool before icing).
While you are waiting for the cake layers to cool, prepare the icing by combining the cream cheese, lemon juice, vanilla essence and salt using a food processor, a stand mixer or electric beaters. Then gradually add in the icing sugar, scraping down the sides of the bowl if necessary, until well combined.
Ice the top of one of the cooled cake layers, then stack the other cake layer on top of this and ice the top of the full cake, and down the sides if you wish. Garnish with extra toasted walnut pieces if you wanna be a wee bit fancy, and enjoy your delicious Zucchini cake!