The Best Chocolate Zucchini Cake
This is literally the best chocolate zucchini cake in the history of ever. So fluffy, so moist, so perfectly chocolatey. It’s amazing!
It is also the main reason I plant zucchini in my garden year after year.
Even when those zucchini squash grow to baseball bat-size proportions, they work for this best-ever cake (just peel off the tough skin, scrape out the seeds and finely shred the zucchini).
It Starts with Zucchini
Zucchini squash is absolutely necessary for the outcome of this cake.
So if you’re looking for a substitution, the only one I can suggest in good conscious is yellow squash. It can usually be interchanged with recipes that call for shredded zucchini.
This recipe calls for two cups of shredded zucchini. Finely shredding it gives the cake the best texture.
While many recipes call for squeezing out the liquid in shredded zucchini, it’s not necessary in this recipe unless you are using frozen, shredded zucchini. Once it is thawed, it will have quite a bit more liquid to it; drain that watery liquid off before using.
Straightforward Cake Batter
Other than the shredded zucchini, the ingredients for this cake batter are pantry and fridge staples.
The zucchini is mixed with the wet ingredients and then the dry ingredients are added.
Mix just until the dry ingredients are incorporated. Kind of like a good muffin batter, you don’t want to over mix this cake batter much or else the cake crumb might not be as soft and fluffy.
Bake, Cool, Frost
The cake bakes up like a dream. Slightly puffed in the center and soft and tender throughout.
I don’t bother flipping the cake out of the pan or frosting it in any kind of elegant way, shape or form.
This is a casual, rustic cake. We’re here for the ultimate effect of zucchini on chocolate cake (read: it’s amazing) and not for any persnickety purposes.
Frosting for Chocolate Zucchini Cake
My favorite frosting adornment for this cake is a simple, lightly sweetened chocolate whipped cream. I literally just throw into a blender: heavy cream, a bit of powdered sugar, cocoa powder until it feels right, and a bit of vanilla. And then blend until thick and creamy.
The pillow chocolate whipped cream with the fluffy, moist, decadent cake is an amazing combination.
Of course you can also dig into the cake straight out of the pan, no frosting necessary. It almost feels kind of breakfast-y that way. And none of my eyes will judge you for it.
Or a classic chocolate frosting does quite well, also.
I know there are a million things you can do with your zucchini crop (not the least of which are these baked zucchini bites and of course my go-to zucchini bread), but seriously, this chocolate cake wins them all.
This cake recipe comes from my Aunt Marilyn. It is a tried-and-true family favorite and has been for years and years. Nothing can beat it.
I wait all year for zucchini season. Which I guess, in a way, could really just be renamed: chocolate zucchini cake season.
The Best Chocolate Zucchini Cake
Ingredients
- 3 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups (318 g) granulated sugar
- ¾ cup buttermilk (see note)
- ½ cup (113 g) melted coconut oil, avocado oil, canola oil or vegetable oil
- 2 cups (283 g) finely shredded zucchini
- 1 ½ cups (213 g) all-purpose flour
- ½ cup (43 g) natural, unsweetened cocoa powder
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9X13-inch pan with cooking spray and set aside. I always use an aluminum/metal baking pan.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla, sugar, buttermilk and oil.
- Stir in the shredded zucchini.
- Add the flour, cocoa powder, salt, soda and baking powder.
- Stir until just combined and no dry streaks remain.
- Spread the batter evenly in the pan and bake for 25-35 minutes until the top springs back lightly to the touch and a toothpick comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.
- Let cool completely.
- Serve with a dollop of lightly sweetened chocolate whipped cream (see note) or spread with chocolate frosting and cut into squares.
Notes
Recommended Products
Recipe Source: adapted slightly from my Aunt Marilyn (I reduce the sugar from 2 cups to 1 1/2 cups, as well as reducing the oil a bit, and use buttermilk instead of milk)
I made this with a delicious, light chocolate buttercream, and it was the perfect combo. This is my new favorite way of making zucchini!
I made this cake dairy and gluten-free for my SIL and it turned out AMAZING! I actually made the regular recipe and a small cake for her and they tasted exactly the same! I just used almond milk and vinegar to make dairy-free buttermilk and a gluten-free flour blend (King Arthur Flour). Turned out SO GOOD! Favorite cake!
Good gracious this is a winner! I’ll be making it again and again. I used 3/4 cup sugar and found it just sweet enough for my family. Thank you Mel!
I am ready to make this! But I have been wondering why you said you always use a metal/aluminum baking pan instead of glass?
Hi Marisa, I’ve found that aluminum/metal baking pans bake much more evenly than glass pans.
SO delicious and moist!!! I will definitely make it again! I live 6,000 ft above sea level and didn’t change a thing and it was perfect! My kids didn’t even know there was zucchini in it. 😉
Oh and the chocolate whipped cream was a game changer. WOW!
Perfect texture and taste! Amazing!
This is also a go-to favorite at our house! We do sprinkle chocolate chips over the top before baking. And our favorite topping is a scoop of vanilla ice cream, with a simple mountain huckleberry sauce drizzled over it all. Double-yum!!!!
You had me at huckleberries. YUM!
This cake was a thumbs up! However, I used the unsweetened cocoa powder for the chocolate whipped cream and didn’t love it. I bet the Dutch-process would taste much better. My cream was too bitter, so I probably added almost another 1/3 cup of powdered sugar and liked that. Thanks for the recipe!
Do I peel the zucchini first?
No, you don’t need to peel the zucchini.
THE BEST!!! Thanks so much for sharing!!
This was absolutely beautiful…one of the best chocolate cakes EVER!! What’s so great is that it’s not only a breeze to prepare, but so delicious as well! My family LOVED the chocolate whipped cream.. lucious!
Thank you Mel for another big score from your collection❣️. P.S. Not sure why so many had issues with the cake & recipe, it’s practically infallible!
Very moist, very tasty! Doesn’t even need frosting (though yours sounds delicious).
I made this into a bundt cake and topped it with chocolate ganache. Holy cow. It was the best chocolate cake I’ve ever had. Super moist and chocolatey and completely delicious.
Best ever.
I love this cake! Could it be baked in cupcakes? My son REALLY wants cupcakes for his birthday.
I haven’t tried it, but others have tried it in the comments with good results.
Thank you for sharing this very delicious recipe We’ve replaced it as a new family favorite. However We’d love to add chocolate chips. Have you had success adding semi-sweet chocolate chips? How many?
I haven’t, but I bet it would work great! I’d suggest tossing the chocolate chips in with the dry ingredients first to help prevent them sinking to the bottom while baking. Maybe start with 1 or 1 1/2 cups and see how that goes!
Hey there. I see many of your recipes have granulated sugar, so would you mind sharing a couple of other choices in lieu of the sugar please? I love your recipes but I’m helping my 8 year get healthy.
Thank you.
You could experiment with other sugars like honey or monk fruit sugar or stevia. I can’t offer much advice as I don’t use those as substitutes for granulated sugar.
This recipe is incredible. I took my overgrown zucchini from greenhouse to oven within an hour. Thanks Aunt Marilyn for the bundt cake timing. It was perfect at 45 minutes. I live in Canada at 3000 ft above sea level with a very wonky electric oven. This was the most amazing cake I have ever made. Thank you!
So happy to hear that, Katherine – thank you!
Warning – this cake is dangerously delicious. Four of us devoured an entire cake in less than a day, and then we did the same thing 2 days later when we baked another cake.
A few of my kids couldn’t handle the texture so for the second one I used the food processor to shred and then to chop. The resulting tiny bits changed the texture enough to win one more kid over. Which means less for me, but that’s probably a good thing.
My cocoa and flour lumped terribly when I put it in my wet mixture.
It turned out terribly (like chuck in the trash terrible)
What did I do wrong 🙁
Does it matter if I use Dutch processed cocoa or regular natural cocoa? I read that Dutch processed doesn’t react with baking soda and so might not rise.
The rise might not be quite as high but I often sub Dutch process for natural unsweetened and in most cases it works ok (you might decrease the baking soda to 1/2 teaspoon and increase the baking powder to 1 teaspoon).
If you make a day before you serve, do you need to refrigerate?
You can…or it’s fine covered at cool room temp, too,
I notice in this recipe and your best chocolate cake (which I LOVE!) that you use a neutral oil instead of butter. Do you know if there is a particular reason these recipes need that or if butter works just as well?
It really depends on the cake. Sometimes a cake recipe (with the makeup of other ingredients) needs oil for a more moist cake. You can always try subbing melted butter, but it may not have the same texture.
Made this tonight, exactly as noted in the recipe. I used frozen zucchini and just drained it really well. I also used almond milk in my “buttermilk”. used a 9×13 glass pan. I didn’t frost it but did sprinkle chocolate chips on top before baking.
It turned out perfectly. It’s delicious.
Thanks!
Hi Mel, could you make and freeze this cake? I want to make this in advance for my daughters birthday then cut into shapes and decorate on the day, do u think it would still taste the same defrosted?
The taste should still be great! I have noticed the top of the cake gets a little softer/more moist and kind of sticky after freezing so keep that in mind.
Absolutely delicious! Served it to my Bridge group today and everyone loved it. I didn’t have a 9 x 13 pan so baked it in a square pan 9 x 9. It took about 50 minutes to bake and was wonderfully moist.
BRAVO !!!
Delicious! Made it for a dinner party, served with fresh blueberries and the chocolate whipped cream on top. (I added 2 Tbsp of chocolate liqueur to the whipped cream instead of the vanilla). Everyone raved about how moist and chocolatey it was!! The kids had no idea there was a vegetable in it, and they all begged for seconds! This is a keeper.
I’m making this today again for Labor Day festivities. It’s a great cake. I always squeeze a little water out of the zucchini just in my hands over the sink. Anyway, this cake is the best and always a hit. I think I get more requests for this recipe than any other I make during the summer.
I’m making this today again for Labor Day festivities. It’s a great cake. I always squeeze a little water out of the zucchini just in my hands over the sink. Anyway, this cake is the best and always a hit. I think I get more requests for this recipe than any other I make during the summer.
Was just talking to a friend last night about this cake. She’s made it 3-4 times and told me how much she loved it. We laughed when I told her it is my favorite cake to. Best recipe!
This is good cake, but very wet on the bottom. I went back to review the recipe and noticed the ingredient list did not include buttermilk, but when you click “make it” buttermilk is listed. i did use the butter milk.So probably making the cake without the milk would result in a drier cake. Just an observation.
I’m a little confused, Betty – I see buttermilk in the ingredient list right below the sugar.
Mel, on my reader there is 1 page with the list of ingredients where the buttermilk is not listed. When I click on make it, it goes to another page where there is buttermilk. I’m confused by this. Should there be buttermilk or no?
Yes, there is buttermilk. It is listed in the ingredients of the recipe on all devices that I’ve tested it on.
This was a total flop for me. I am always baking zucchini cake recipes and decided to try something that didn’t have chocolate chips….. OMG it was gummy and horrible. I baked it longer like for 45-50 minutes cuz it seemed raw at 35 minutes. Have no idea why except I thought the flour should have been 2 and half cups not 1 and a half cups??? Wonder where it went wrong for me….. we laughed because I have never had a cake fail……. I followed recipe to a T . with freshly grated zucchini.
Hey Brenda – how finely or coarsely grated was your zucchini? I’ve found that the larger the zucchini shreds/pieces, the more gummy the baked zucchini good will be. The 1 1/2 cups flour is correct; not sure why yours turned out so gummy. Darn! I just made this recipe this last weekend as cupcakes and they were light and fluffy, so I’m not sure what went wrong for you.
Hi Mel
this cake was a horrible gummy mess even after being baked twice as long as recommended.
So disappointing after all the rave reviews.
Jean
Sorry to hear that, Jean – depending on what variety of zucchini you used (or if it has a lot of seeds), you might need to squeeze out extra water. That might help? I’ve made it dozens of times without the gumminess issue so I’m thinking it must be due to how we are each treating the zucchini (or what type of zucchini we are using). Were your zucchini really large or on the smaller side?
Mine was gummy and my flour lumped it was terrible. And Ive never had a cake flop.
The instant the four and cocoa went in it was lump city.
I tried breaking it them up with my fingers (what a mess)
Double checked the recipe did it all as mentioned.
Thought maybe it will bake up ok…
It was a gooey gummy mess
Sorry this didn’t work out for you, Carina. What type of flour did you use?
I made this yesterday and cake baked up nicely but cocoa was too much. Gave these a bitter taste. I used good old Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa powder. It’s like it needed more sugar to counter the cocoa?
I split the recipe into 2 loaf tins. It tasted great but was about 1/2 the height of the tin. Any suggestion on how I should have adjusted the recipe to loaves?…ie more b. powder or b. soda?
How big were the pans, Sandi? 9X5 or 8 1/2 X 4 1/2? I’ve never made this cake into loaves so I’m not entirely sure, but it sounds like you may not need to split it into two pans if it only baked up to 1/2 the height.
They are 9X5. I wonder if they would cook properly?? Adding more b soda or b powder won’t help? I like to give them away and loaves are easier than one large cake. I just looked at the cake picture and my loaves were close to the same height. I’m going to try them again…they taste fabulous and are so moist.
Would this be good with German chocolate cake topping?
Sounds like a delicious idea!
Sorry – meant to leave five stars. This is truly a five star recipe!!!
So delicious, and a great way to use up a big garden zucchini! I subbed about 1/3 kamut flour for all purpose and baked them in my donut pan for abt 12 min (it filled my 20 donut pan w a little leftover for 2 mini cakes in ramekins) and topped w ganache. So good! None of the kids or husband guessed the mystery vegetable ingredient 🙂
Oh my. This cake. So good. I thought it was pretty fantastic on day one but day two was ridiculous. I will make this again and again and again. My new favourite zucchini recipe of all time. Thank you!
Thanks, Lynn!
OMG, this is the best cake ever. First of all, this is the first cake I have ever made from scratch and second, it’s the best cake ever. 🙂
I didn’t frost, you don’t need to but I did add a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Hey it’s got zucchini in it, it all balences out health wise. 🙂
I made this doubling the recipe for a 2-layer cake. YUM! So moist and delicious. I even used whole wheat flour and it got rave reviews.
I frosted the cake with my own salted walnut butter cream. I also cut down the sugar in the cake because I don’t like too sweet of a cake. The balance of frosting sweetness to cake slightly sweet was delicious. So good!
I will definitely be making this recipe again!
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I used sour cream instead of buttermilk (cause I didn’t have that or regular milk) and only used a cup of sugar and the coconut oil and it was still delicious! Thanks for the recipe!
Hi Mel,
Could I substitute almond milk for the buttermilk? My son a a dairy allergy.
Thanks!
I’m not sure, Lianne – I haven’t tried it, but I think it might work!
I often replace dairy milk for almond or cashew milk. With things that thicken like pudding just add less
This is a very moist cake. The recipe is very forgiving. I think you can change any part of it to suit your needs. As it says though, don’t squeeze out the juice from the zucchini.
Delicious and such a simple easy to follow recipe. Definitely a keeper. Thank you!
Hi Mel,
I’ve been following your website for oh so long and love just about everything I try. I have made this cake before in a 13×9 and we just loved it. I’d like to make it again for my daughter’s birthday cake but would like to make it in 2 round pans and then layer them with frosting in between. Do you think this is a good recipe for that?
I haven’t tried that, but I think it would bake up quite well in round pans. Good luck!
I did this but needed to double the recipe. Worked very well.
This recipe is delicious. I didn’t have any vanilla the first time I made it so I put Kahlua liquor instead. It’s now a must. It stays moist and tasty for at least 5 days if it lasts that long. A huge hit with everyone at my work, with my friends and family. I think my sister’s boss brings her zucchini just so I will make this and send him in some.
I added a Tbsp of espresso powder and made mini muffins with them. I piped on cream cheese icing and sprinkled with chocolate shavings and they were absolute amazing. My This recipe is dynamite! I am certainly going to try more of your recipes 🙂
Thanks, Lori! Glad you loved this recipe – thanks for detailing your changes!
Oh my word!!!!This is the best chocolate anything I ever ate! I’m in love!!! After the first delicious pan i’ve done some tweaking and have gotten to replacing all oil with apple sauce, and using 1 cup of whole wheat flour with 1/2 of a flour. Now I feel a bit better about how quickly we go through a pan
Over the top delicious especially with the Chocolate frosting. All came together quickly. I drained the zucchini out of habit and was still ok. I also used whole wheat pastry flour.
I was short a few ounces on powdered sugar when making the icing but was still thick creamy and delicious— died and gone to heaven delicious
Hi Mel, I made this in a bundt pan, it baked perfectly in 45 mins.
It was moist, delicious, and my little one who hates all things vegetable… gobbled it right up (not knowing there was zucchini in it). I’m not normally a ‘sweet’ person (I just love baking not eating it), and I couldn’t resist a few BIG bites of this cake. It was perfect!
Thank you so much for sharing all of your amazing recipes! You make me look like a rock-star in the kitchen. Forever grateful for finding your blog! 🙂
So happy to know this worked well for you in a bundt pan! Thanks, Grace!
I made it the first time and it was delicious the second time I made it I decided to use palm sugar instead of granulated sugar with the coconut oil added also about a fourth of a cup of coconut to the cake batter and then use cream cheese icing with toasted coconut and pecans. Both recipes came out terrifically wonderful delicious
Delicious variation!
I don’t prefer chocolate cake, nor does my husband but my 6 year old asked me to make him some so I did. This is the best chocolate cake I have tried to date. The texture is just right. It is moist and does not get gummy when you chew it. It also does not stick to your palate. Very enjoyable. I did not have buttermilk or milk to sour so I used organic non GMO soy milk. I also ran out of coconut oil so I had to use butter instead. Just to mix things up a bit I also used 1 cup of white flour, 1/4 cup whole wheat flour and 1/4 cup almond flour and reduced the sugar to 1 cup from 1 1/2. I cut some up and froze it for once a week school snacks. It’s probably healthier than some other snacks kids eat with the high iron from the cocoa and fibre from the flours and zucchini. Thanks for sharing this recipe.
I made this today, hoping to serve it for a family get together tonight. But it was so tasty, that the small group that was here this afternoon ate it right up! We added some semi sweet chocolate chips, and tested it with powdered sugar. Thanks for a perfect recipe!
I made this cake as written when it was first posted and it was awesome! I made it again yesterday and substituted all white whole wheat flour and upped the sugar to 2 cups. It was outstanding again–so moist, and I do admit, I loved the extra bit of sweetness, especially with the wheat flour. So delicious!