Zucchini Banana Cakes

“Obstacles do not block the path. They are the path.”

— Zen Proverb

Can we just start by saying that I forgot how much I LOVE adding things like zucchini, banana, and the like to my baked goods?! They are like an instant moist maker (if you know, you know) and I couldn’t be happier! With this recipe, I wanted to see if I could go eggless, just as a fun little challenge for myself—and I was not prepared to fall in love with these little cuties as much as I did!

To me, zucchini cakes and breads are such a summer staple, as zucchinis are truly thriving and, even during this time, they can be found in abundance at the grocery store. At our local shop, they are front and center in the produce section, so naturally, I grabbed way too many of them for our weekly consumption! Then I was like seriously, Katie?! Why haven’t you baked with zucchini yet this season?! And these little bites were born! To go even a step further, I threw in a banana (#quarantinebananabread), subbed the butter for coconut oil (a true obsession of mine), used some coconut sugar (if you haven’t tried this yes, DO IT! Your life will be changed), and, the pièce de résistance, TAZA CHOCOLATE!!

What do I love about Taza?! Uhm well for starters it’s dairy free. Yes, so your girl can eat it with a happy tummy! And there are truly just a handful of ingredients, no added sugar, no added anything, it’s such a nice bean to bar company and I am living for it!! The dark chocolate I used in these babies is unreal! The perfect combination of just a bit bitter with just a bit sweet, so you aren’t having any sugar spikes in these mini cakes! For the glaze? Oh, I went for it and used their coconut chocolate bar. It is so. dang. divine!! We all know your girl loves chocolate, so when I got a big box of both their traditional and nut milk bars, I was on cloud 9!

Anyways, let me come down a bit here! Let’s just end this little bit by saying that 1. They are the perfect size, so popping in a few of these at a time is truly encouraged; 2. My husband loves them—and when he likes something, it makes me even happier!! Mainly so I’m not the only one eating them; 3. These are SO great for summer! Easy to whip up, simple ingredients, take only 15 minutes to bake, what more could you ask for?!

As a lover of all things chocolate and then adding in fresh produce into something as well, I’m SUCH a happy camper—and trust me, you will be too once you stop reading my ramble and get to baking!!

ingredients

Coconut Oil—3.75 oz, or ½ C

Coconut Sugar—3 oz or 2/3 C

Banana—1 medium

Vanilla Extract—1 tsp

Flour—5.5 oz, or 1 C

Baking Powder—¾ tsp

Baking Soda—½ tsp

Salt—½ tsp

Cinnamon—1 tsp

Zucchini, grated—4.75 oz, or 1 C

Oat Milk—1.5 oz, or 3 TBL

Chocolate, chopped—1 bar (2.5 oz)

Chocolate, chopped—1 bar (2.5 oz)

Coconut Oil—1 TBL

process

Preheat your oven to 350˚F.

In a bowl, combine softened coconut oil and coconut sugar, mix until homogenous.

Fold in the mashed banana and vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.

Gently alternate folding in this mixture and the milk into the banana mixture.

Fold in the grated zucchini and chocolate.

Spray either a mini bundt pan or cupcake pan with nonstick spray.

Scoop this batter until it is ¾ way up the sides of each cup.

Bake for 7 minutes, rotate, then 7 more minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely on a cooling rack.

To make the glaze, melt together another TAZA chocolate bar with 1 TBL of coconut oil.

Dip each mini cake into the melted chocolate, allow to set before storing.

These keep wonderfully in the refrigerator, while still very moist due to both the banana and zucchini!

Bon Appétit!

Berry Filled Tea Cake

Happy Spring, y’all!

I hope that it has been as warm, beautiful, and blooming where you are as it has been in Atlanta! While I am still not used to this 80˚F weather in April and now even warmer in May, I must say that I kind of love all of the life it has brought! Cherry blossoms, hydrangeas, gardenias, the list of stunning flowers that are right outside of our little apartment goes on and on. Even beyond that, the farmer’s market season is in full swing, everyone seems to be outside running, walking, and biking, the wonderful months of grilling and margaritas have arrived—ahh can you tell I’m so excited?!

With this just incredible time of the year upon us, I wanted to give you a recipe that is just as light, refreshing, bright and simply sweet to enjoy during these warmer days ahead of us!

This cake recipe below is truly perfect for Mother’s Day, summer brunches, showers, BBQ’s—and that’s all because it is not overwhelmingly sweet. I don’t know about you, but when it’s 85˚ outside with about 90% humidity, there’s nothing I want less than a heavy dessert, which is where this idea came about. I’ve replaced any white sugar or brown sugar with honey and maple syrup, giving it a little bit more of a floral and earthy taste to the cake. From there, I used one of my current favorite teas—Ginger Turmeric—and steeped that in a honey simple syrup for a slight twist and a little kick. Lastly, the “barely-there” cream cheese flavor in the buttercream, combined with some lemon extract gives you that pop of citrus that we all crave in the summer, especially with en entire orange worth of zest in the cake! I took this one step farther and chopped up some fresh strawberries for the filling of this cake, because why wouldn’t you want that?!

Et voilà!

This cake is, to me, as lovely and stunning as all of those amazing flowers outside! It adds a nice fresh touch to any party, brunch, heck, even an afternoon snack if you’re me! With a summer that is sure to be filled with lots of dog snuggles, outdoor adventures, weekend getaways and possibly Sunday mornings when you wake your husband up too early for a “beat the sun” run…this berry filled, tea soaked cake, is exactly what you’ll be craving!

cake ingredients

Milk—4 oz, of ½ C

Canola Oil—3 oz, or ½ C

Honey—4 oz, or 1/3 C

Maple Syrup—3 oz, or ¼ C

Eggs—2

Vanilla Extract—1 ½ tsp

Flour—11 oz, or 2 C

Baking Powder—2 tsp

Baking Soda—½ tsp

Salt—½ tsp

Orange Zest—1 orange

process

Preheat your oven to 350˚F.

Whisk together all of your dry ingredients—the milk, oil, honey, maple syrup, eggs and vanilla.

In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the orange zest

Combine the wet and dry, whisking together until just combined.

Prep 2-6” cake pans by spraying with nonstick spray, and then either covering the bottom with a light dusting of flour, or some parchment paper.

Add half of the cake batter to each pan, which should only fill each about halfway.

Put in your preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes, rotating, then another 10.

When fully baked, the center of the center of the cake should spring back nicely when pressed.

Allow to cool completely on a cooling rack until you are ready to assemble the cake.

syrup ingredients

Water—6 oz, or ¾ C

Honey—8 oz, or ¾ C

Tea Bags—4

Salt—small pinch

process

In a small saucepot, combine the water and honey; bring to a light boil, just so that the honey dissolves into the water.

Remove from the heat and steep your tea bags anywhere from 15-30 minutes, depending on how intense you want this honey-tea syrup to be!

*Note: I used a Ginger Turmeric tea for this recipe—it is quite subtle but adds a great warmth and spice to the sweet syrup, but the options are endless!*

Once you remove the tea bags, add the salt.

Allow to cool completely before using it on your cake!

buttercream ingredients

Butter (room temperature)—10 oz, or 1 ¼

Cream Cheese—4 oz, or ½ C

Vanilla Extract—1 TBL

Lemon Extract—1 tsp

Milk—1 oz, or 2 TBL

Confectioner’s Sugar—27 oz, or 5 ¼ C

process

In the bowl of your mixer, using the whisk attachment, cream together the butter and cream cheese until verrryyyy smooth and creamy—this should take you a good 5-10 minutes depending on the consistency of the butter.

Once smooth, slowly add in the sifted confectioner’s sugar, scraping down after about every cup added.

When all the sugar has been added and the bowl has been scraped down, add in the vanilla and 1 TBL of the milk.

Mix and scrape.

Add in the second TBL of milk.

Turn your mixer on about medium-high so that your buttercream becomes nice and fluffy.

Now it can be used to finish your cake!

assembly

When your cake has completely cooled, trim the tops off of both cakes so that they are flat.

Using the syrup that you made earlier, brush a healthy amount on each cake layer, specifically the side that you just trimmed off—this will keep it nice and moist the longer that it sits!

Using either a plate or a cake turntable, evenly spread on your buttercream—I do about ½” for the center.

*Optional: you may put fresh fruit in the center for even more flavor—I have used strawberries here!*

If you opt to put fruit in the middle, press it down to make sure that it is in place, and you may even want to add more buttercream over the fruit to secure it even more.

Now place the other cake layer, syruped side down, on top of the fruit, buttercreamy center you just created.

Place a good dollop of the buttercream on top and spread a thin, even layer. Do the same with the sides—this doesn’t have to be perfect, and it may have crumbs in it, it is just a base coat!

Place this “crumb-coated” cake in the fridge to firm up for about 20-30 minutes.

Once your outside layer has set just a bit, it’ll be easier to spread on more buttercream, this time there will be no crumbs that get in your beautiful frosting job!

When you have applied the second coating of buttercream and are satisfied with how absolutely beautiful and yummy it looks, decorating it however you wish—I used some dried orange peel that I had kicking around—you may cut into it and enjoy!

At this point, like me, you may have almost forgotten about the surprise of fresh fruit inside—and this, plus the syrup keeps the cake tasting extremely moist!

Bon Appétit!

Blueberry Cupcakes with Toasted Meringue

Oh, hello there. Can we be friends again, please?!

July was one hell of a month—two of my friends got married, I spent over a week in Maine for my own wedding stuff, marathon training got really intense!! Just everything is happening in a beautiful 2-3 month period, and I can’t bring myself to chill for a sec and bake! I mean I did allow myself to binge read the new Harry Potter book in a couple of days—that’s as wild as I get!

I love when life is crazy busy and exciting, but like, hold up, can I have a day or two when I can think about nothing and just nap?! Maybe I’ll take a nice winter hibernation this year…

So, while being at my mom’s house, I forgot how much I absolutely love waking up every morning and picking fresh raspberries and blueberries from all of the bushes we have around the house! It doesn’t get much better than that—I mean maybe when I would bring my dogs with me to pick them and they would smush their faces into the berries, then leave them on the ground. I suppose that was pretty cute…even though they wasted so many beautiful berries…

ANYWAYS! That there is the inspiration for these moist, berry-filled cakes I’ve made for you. There is just something so satisfying about homegrown produce, and when you can bake with it, I mean, that is the ultimate! Oh wait, then I added some meringue on top—even torched it with my brand new flame! This has been on my “must have” list for like, a lifetime, and my friends were too kind to have gotten it for me!

And let me tell you, it does so much more than just torch meringue, it lights candles, it lights cupcake liners on fire, it makes fruit taste burnt, it’s just all-around fun!

When I stopped lighting nonsense on fire with my new torch, I actually toasted the meringue, and Oh. My. Gosh. Hi campfire on you gorgeous little blueberry cakes! If I hadn’t felt such a sugar high, I would have just torched ALL of the meringue and eaten it like that. The balance of the sugary meringue, the tart berries and the toastiness on top of it all—it’s one of the most perfect bites in my opinion!

I can’t get over it, clearly shown by all of my exclamation points in the last paragraph! And now!

Being at home, in Maine, means the ocean, the fresh air, the weird accents, bonfires, family, lots of dog snuggles, and, of course, fruit picking! Having a beautiful bowl of handpicked berries on the back patio on a cool summer morning is just beyond comforting and relaxing. While these cupcakes are not exactly that, it’s pretty damn close!—I give you yummy blueberries stuffed into cupcakes and topped with (way too much) toasted meringue!

It’s light, it’s happy, it’s summery, and it screams all things Katie! 

cake ingredients

Butter—2 oz, 4 TBL

Sugar—2.75 oz, or 1/3 C

Vanilla Extract—½ tsp

Eggs—2

Plain Yogurt—4 oz, or ½ C

Flour—5.5 oz, or 1 C

Oats—1 oz, or ¼ C

Baking Powder—½ tsp

Salt—½ tsp

Cinnamon—1 tsp

Blueberries—5 oz, or ~1 C

process

Preheat your oven to 350˚ F.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, oats, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

In the bowl of your mixer, cream together the butter and sugar.

Once light and fluffy, add in the vanilla and eggs.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Alternating between the yogurt (I prefer Greek!) and the dry ingredients, add about ½ of each at a time until you have finished both.

Fold in the blueberries.

In a lined muffin pan, fill each cup up about halfway with the cake batter.

Bake in your preheated oven for 15-18 minutes, until the top springs back just slightly.

Allow to cool completely before putting the meringue on top!

For the meringue, it is this recipe here, but I halved it to use for this recipe (you can even quarter it if you’d like). Also, torching the meringue is, of course, optional, but if you have a cute little kitchen torch, I highly suggest using it—adds for a great toasty flavor!

Bon Appétit!