CAKES OF THE WEEK

bakers dozen

We're a little inundated with zucchini here at the moment, so we've been working through as many courgette configurations as we can manage, and to be honest we're just about over it. Let's just say we're pretty much at the "If I eat another zucchini I may shoot myself stage" . However today I was inspired to try something new, and had someone coming over for afternoon tea I needed to impress, so I took a deep breath, picked more of the blasted things and got busy in the kitchen. Suprisingly in just over an hour I managed to whip up a couple of batches of these mini zucchini, carrot, date and walnut cakes which I have to say were unbelievably delicious ( if I do say so myself). And a piece of cake (sorry) to make. So here's the recipe for anyone else out there who's vegetabley challenged at the moment. Oh just in case I should confess that I was baking these at the same time as a peach and apple crumble so you may have to adjust the oven temp and cooking time accordingly for best results of course you could just make a peach and apple crumble at the same time.

1 cup roughly chopped walnuts

1 large zucchini grated

1 large apple grated

4 large dates, roughly chopped

1/2 cup olive oil

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup raw sugar

3 eggs

2 1/2 cups sifted SR flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

Preheat oven tp 180 degrees

Combine walnuts, grated apple, grated zucchini in a large bowl with the sugar, buttermilk, oil and eggs and mix well. Stir in flour, cinnamon and nutmeg. Spoon mix into large muffin patty pans in large muffin tray (mix will make 18 mini cakes this size) and plonk a walnut on the top of each one. Bake for around 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean and golden brown on top. take out of tray when cooked and cool on wire rack. apparently they'll keep in the fridge for around 5 days... if they last that long.