Eatin' My Daily Fruits & Veggies: Pineapple Zucchini Cake

Let's face it-- the The Pioneer Woman is cooking for a brood of active kids, and hard-working cowboys.  Craig and I are living in an empty nest, so we both want to limit how much butter and heavy cream we consume, on a regular basis. So, my good mood turned cranky-- and there's a reason I am admitting this to you.  I just couldn't find a dessert recipe that was hitting the visual taste bud meter for me.   Finally, I decided that Ree's Pineapple Zucchini Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting looked easy enough to make-- and I had everything in stock.  The only thing I was not going to tempt myself into making was the frosting--  and not because I wouldn't like it.  On the contrary, I didn't want the temptation to eat it.

You need two cups of grated zucchini.  If you've never had zucchini cake, I can promise you that it doesn't taste like zucchini.  I would venture to guess that this squash vegetable has a lot of moisture-- and that's one of the keys to this very moist cake.  You can use a box grate, but my food processor makes it so easy.  These are four average sized zucchini's (turns out I only needed two).  You want to squeeze out the excess water-- and I use my ricer for this. It's super easy and it works great for spinach as well. Otherwise, squeeze it out in a towel.

 There we have two cups of dry, grated zucchini.  The remaining two cups are in my fridge-- and I have an idea with what to make with them. But, back to dessert...

Drain a 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple, and reserve the juice.  The juice is to be used if the batter is too thick or for the ream cheese frosting. (I'll explain that later.)

The dry ingredients are easy-- all-purpose flour, sugar, 3 tablespoons of canola oil and two large eggs. You might not have whole wheat pastry flour, so it's okay to us regular flour.  Fortunately, I had a bag of pastry flour, and I was glad to finally be able to use it.

You don't even need to drag out the stand mixer. This is all easily mixed by hand. Simply add the wet ingredients to the dry, add vanilla (I added a bit of my Bakery Emulsion that I'm fond of).  Fold in the zucchini and pineapple.  NOTE: Do you see pineapple in here?  This is where my grumpy mood comes in to the story line.....

Because I didn't want to frost this cake in a sheet pan, I chose this cake pan that dates way back to my mom's kitchen.  I cut parchment paper (because it's good insurance against cakes getting stuck),  and greased the pan well.  I poured the batter into the pan...and then saw the can of drained pineapple.  (Dark words of expression are omitted here).  Being grumpy means that I didn't give 100% into setting up my mis en place. Serves me right... so...

I added the pineapple, and folded it in as best as I could.  The batter did not need the reserved pineapple juice at all.  In fact, I thought 20 oz. of pineapple seemed like a lot.  Into a 350F oven, I placed the cake pan and set the timer for 35 minutes.

As expected, the cake smelled wonderful.  I allowed it to cool for a few minutes...then removed the cake...and promptly dropped it. Yep, it slipped out of my grasp, hit the edge of the cooling rack-- to my utter horror!  (More dark and colorful words are not listed here.)

As you can see, there's a lot of pineapple on top and the cake is denser on the bottom.  I think this is because I spaced out on folding the pineapple and zucchini together. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

You would think that the missing piece of cake was devoured...but, no, I removed the evidence of my slippery fingers! 

Go ahead, make the cream cheese frosting!  I'm sure it's fantastic.  I simply dusted the cake with powdered sugar (or, is it confectioners sugar?)  Craig was skeptical of the little green bits.  He likes this.  Your kids would never know there's a green vegetable in it. 

There are a few reasons why I'm a loyal fan of The Pioneer Woman-- she's funny and she writes really well. She's real. She also knows how to pick great recipes.  This is one of them. If you want to see her high-caloric version, it's on her blog.

VERDICT: Even without the frosting, I loved the moistness of this cake.  It's terrific as a snack cake, or even with a morning cup of coffee. I'll bet this will taste even better tomorrow. This is a classic cake recipe that deserves to be made.  There's no butter in this-- just 3 tablespoons of canola oil.  It's got the perfect balance of spices. I think I'd reduce the pineapple by half.   Oh, and you can use shredded carrots instead of zucchini and get great results (as the original recipes says).

As for my cranky  mood... it's dissipating!

I have to think of this place-- this is where I spend most of my lunch breaks. This is Lover's Point, at Pacific Grove in my home state of California-- just a few minutes away from where I work.  This photo was taken just last Friday-- and it was 72 degrees outside.  Not a bad place to enjoy a lunch, is it?  It's where I go to de-stress from work.  I just wish the weekend didn't go so fast!

I cannot wait to share with you some healthy recipes I've been making. It's definitely grilling season in my neck of the woods.  I'll try and post them this week.  The recipe for this cake is at the bottom of this post. I included the frosting recipe, for those of you who want to make this.  It's a keeper!

Two more weeks until Spring Break!