Chocolate courgette cake

Everyone loves chocolate cake and we’ve taken our deep, rich chocolate sponge up a notch by adding grated courgettes, resulting in a really moist, luscious bake, and topped it with a light cocoa cream.

1 HOUR 30 MINUTES + COOLING | SERVES 10 12 | EASY

salted butter 175g, cubed, plus extra for the tin

dark chocolate 75g, roughly chopped

vanilla bean paste 1 tbsp

eggs 3 greek yogurt 100g

caster sugar 200g

soft dark brown sugar 75g

plain flour 300g

bicarbonate of soda 2 tsp cocoa powder 50g

courgettes 375g, coarsely grated

ICING

double cream 300ml

soft dark brown sugar 50g

cocoa powder 3 tbsp

1 Heat the oven to 180C/fan

160C/gas 4. Butter a deep

23cm loose-bottomed cake tin and line with baking paper.

2 Put the butter, chocolate and vanilla in a heatproof bowl over a pan of gently simmering water, stirring until combined and smooth, or put in a bowl and heat for 20 seconds in the microwave until melted.

Stir and leave to cool for 5 minutes.

3 When the mixture has slightly cooled, whisk in the eggs, then the yogurt, until smooth. Mix together the sugars, flour, bicarb and cocoa powder in a large bowl. Gradually pour the wet ingredients into the dry, whisking continuously, until smooth. Fold in the courgettes until combined.

4 Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes1 hour 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool completely in the tin.

5 To make the icing, put the cream, sugar and cocoa powder in a large bowl, and whisk to soft peaks. Remove the cake from the tin, put on a serving plate, and dollop the icing on top, spreading it with the back of a spoon to cover the surface. Will keep for up to three days in an airtight container in the fridge.

PER SERVING 12 527 kcals | fat 31.7G saturates 19.1G | carbs 51.5G | sugars 31.2G fibre 2.9G | protein 7.5G | salt 0.8G