Zucchini Cake With Ginger and Hazelnuts
Updated July 19, 2016
Craig Lee for The New York Times
- Total Time
- 1 hour, plus cooling time
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups sugar
2 large eggs
½ cup vegetable oil
⅓ cup orange juice
2 teaspoons orange zest
2 teaspoons peeled, grated ginger root
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ cups grated zucchini
½ cup finely chopped hazelnuts
Nutritional analysis per serving (12 servings)
39 grams carbs; 31 milligrams cholesterol; 294 calories; 10 grams monounsaturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 14 grams fat; 1 gram fiber; 207 milligrams sodium; 4 grams protein; 22 grams sugar
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, orange juice, zest, ginger and vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the flour and stir until just combined. Fold in the zucchini and hazelnuts.
- Step 2
Butter and flour a tube pan. Scrape the batter into the pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack. Slice and serve.
Private Notes
Comments
Holy god, this was good. I've made it a couple of times and I've found that it is still quite good with the sugar cut down to a heaped half cup. Any less and I found that it lost the cake-y consistency.
Delicious. As several have noted, cutting the sugar in half works well and I wouldn't have wanted it any sweeter. Definitely toast the hazelnuts first. and increase to a cup. A little more ginger would be nice too.
1) Used 9"x3" springform pan & baked per recipe. Buttered, parchment lined bottom & buttered it, flour dusted all. Baked per recipe for toasty brown top, moist, dense crumb. 2) Fresh ginger & orange juice /peel great flavor combo. Those plus nuts make pretty, rustic color against flecks of zucchini green. 3) Used pecans; had them on hand. 5) Used mild EVOO; educed oil from 1/2 C (8TB) to 6 TB. 6) Just sweet enough. Good anytime of day. 7) Stays moist day 2.
I live at 5500ft above sea level. Used a bunt pan, baked for 42 min, reduced the sugar to a scant cup, and left all the water in the zucchini. Turned out as perfect as all the rave reviews.
I have the original recipe, snipped from the NYT Magazine back in 1999, faded, torn, and stained, and came here to first say hallelujah for this incredible archive resource of recipes, and secondly, to remind everyone to grate zucchini, let it drain, and then freeze it so that you can make this cake throughout the winter! A staple in our house for Sunday snacking, it is absolutely one of the best ways to use zukes ever. No really. Make this cake!
This was a good zucchini cake. But reading these comments/reviews, I was really expecting way more. I did increase the orange zest and ginger, since our tastes run that way, and I did toast the hazelnuts. But the exuberance in the comments seems overblown. Perhaps there is a cadre of zucchini bread/cake lovers out there who have been eating bad bread/cake for too long? Hard to know. It was fine, not extraordinary in any way.