Saturday, September 9, 2017

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Yesterday was the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in other words, Happy Birthday Mary!


A little family magazine we picked up at church had a few suggestions to celebrate including lighting a prayer candle, bringing flowers to an altar, and saying the rosary. We have recently started up praying a decade of the rosary a day using the Holy Heroes rosary CDs. It just so happened the mystery we were on yesterday was the Assumption of Mary, so the decade was filled with scripture passages about Mary - it worked out perfectly! I highly recommend the Holy Heroes CDs if you are struggling to say the rosary as a family, or you feel you need help getting started. It's led by children and each Hail Mary is preceded by a short scripture verse that helps you meditate on the mystery for the decade. My oldest, (7 years old), immediately took to it, asking to do entire rosaries instead of just a decade, reminding the rest of the family about prayer time each night, and taking the CD player up to his bedroom to pray on his own before he goes to sleep. He is definitely much more focused than when we would try it on our own before! I enjoy them as an adult as well. They do a great job creating a relaxed, meditative mood. We also really enjoy listening to the Glory Stories CDs about the lives of saints on long car trips.

Of course the last suggestion for Mary's birthday in the magazine was the kid's favorite; bake a cake and sing happy birthday! Using ingredients we had on hand I decided to make one of my absolute favorite cake recipes; a chocolate zucchini cake I found on allrecipes.com. It's the same recipe I used for my daughter's farm themed birthday last year. It is a very easy cake to put together, especially since we have a ton of shredded zucchini on hand in the freezer due to an abundance from the garden. It's probably the only thing I've been able to grow in abundance so far! The original recipe also calls for chopped walnuts, but I leave that part out.


I had my own idea on how to decorate the cake for the feast day, and the kids had another. I started with my design, and then let the kids take over. It was the last day of the first week of school so I didn't use any piping bags or anything, we all just had some fun with sprinkles. As I told the kids, Mary is a mom, so she would love whatever way they wanted to decorate the cake for her! My son also made the keen observation that if Mary is everyone's mother, and she's the queen of heaven, than all of us are princesses and princes! That certainly pleased the almost three year old who is currently very into princesses.

"When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, 'Woman, behold your son.' Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold your mother.' And from that hour he took her into his home." John 19:26-27

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
3 cups grated zucchini

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.

Combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Mix in the eggs and oil. Fold in the zucchini and pour into the prepared pan. 

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a fork or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cool completely before frosting and enjoy!

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