Chocolate and Ginger cake with a surprise

"I am literally going to be sick" said my daughter as she watched me make a cake with a grated courgette in it. To be fair, the finished article looked and tasted like something you'd eat in a vegan cafe, so I gave it away in pieces - but no-one could identify the mystery ingredient.

A couple of weeks later I served up a sumptuous chocolate and ginger cake which met with great approval and requests for seconds. I kept quiet until they'd finished, then crowed "You've just eaten courgette cake!" (in a childish playground kind of voice). But there were no retching noises, no shrieks of horror, for they had actually enjoyed it.

A divine combination of moist, light chocolatey-gingery sponge topped with gooey chocolate studded with pieces of sweet ginger - and ludicrously easy to make.

Chocolate, courgette and ginger cake

Chocolate, Courgette and Ginger cake

90ml mild and light olive oil
200g caster sugar
2 small eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
150g grated courgette (peel the skin off and discard any seeds)
175g self raising flour
25g cocoa powder
1½ teaspoons ground ginger
¼ teaspoon salt

Icing: 60ml double cream
100g dark chocolate, chopped
A tablespoon of chopped stem ginger in syrup

Heat the oven to 180/gas 4. Put the olive oil, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and courgette in a bowl and mix well. Add the flour, cocoa, ginger and salt and mix again. Transfer to a lined 20cm cake tin (or an 18cm square in my case) and bake for 30-35 minutes. Turn out to cool after 10 minutes.

To make the icing: Bring the cream to the boil in a pan. Take it off the heat and stir in the chocolate. When it's melted, add a heaped tablespoon of ginger (not too much syrup), mix again and spoon it over the cake while still warm.

This cake has been entered in the We Should Cocoa recipe challenge hosted by JibberJabberUK (lip-smacking family food) and (the heavenly) Chocolate Log Blog!

Pear and ginger cake with ginger glaze

Ginger - guaranteed to cure colds and keep you young. It also protects you from radiation if eaten daily. Apparently. (I wonder if they know that in Fukushima). Yet again, I seemed to have a glut of nearly-rotten pears which I just couldn't bear to throw away, so this recipe which used 2 (or 3, by the time I'd cut out the brown bits) was ideal.

Pear and ginger loaf cake

Pear and Ginger loaf cake

200g butter (unsalted preferable but not essential)
100g soft brown sugar
100g caster sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Half a teaspoon ground ginger
200g self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 pears, peeled and chopped
2 balls of stem ginger in syrup, finely chopped

Glaze: 3 tablespoons syrup from the ginger and 3 tablespoons light brown sugar

Heat oven to 160/gas 3. Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the eggs and vanilla gradually. Fold in the flour and baking powder and then the pears and ginger. Place the mixture in a lined 2lb loaf tin and bake for 60-70 minutes. Make the glaze by mixing together the syrup and the sugar, adding a half a teaspoon of water. Tip it over the cake and allow it to cool in the tin.

I had run out of self-raising flour so added an extra 3 teaspoons of baking powder to the recipe; and I used only half the amount of sugar - unintentionally - but you wouldn't know.

Talking of gluts, I have a few apples to use up...

... all suggestions gratefully received