For a long time this has been one of our favourite everyday cakes. It’s a sheet cake, not a big fancy layer cake, it’s dusted with a sprinkling of powdered sugar just before serving. Chunks of chocolate interspersed through the cake and little flecks of zucchini barely visible, but adding a wonderful moistness to the cake.

It has a hint of spice with cloves and cinnamon, this is really a great cake to be able to sit with at the end of the day, or to wrap in a piece of waxed paper to take to work and devour in front of workmates!

This cake is bound to become a favourite in your house as well. I do need to apologise for the photos in this post, they are not my best, I was having a bit of an off day with the camera. But despite the photos the cake is a keeper.

Chocolate and Zucchini Sheet Cake

• 1/2 cup of butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup of oil
• 1 tspn of vanilla
• 1 3/4 cup of sugar
• 4Tblspns cocoa
• 2 1/2 cups of flour
• 1 tspn baking soda
• 1/2 tspn baking powder
• 1/2 tspn ground cloves
• 1/2 tspn of cinnamon
• 1/2 cup of sour milk (milk with 1 tspn of vinegar added to it) or buttermilk
• 1 cup of chopped good quality chocolate
• 2 cups of zucchini grated.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F

Grease and flour a slice pan ( 9x11 cake pan)

Cream together the butter and sugar - add in the eggs one at a time, mix in well then add in oil and vanilla, mix.

Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and spices. Add to the butter mixture alternately with the milk, stir until just mixed.

Add in your zucchini and chopped chocolate.

Bake 40 minutes. Cooked when a skewer comes out clean.

This cake does not have an icing, it’s just fine without it. I normally just dust some icing sugar over the top before serving.

Next time you are looking for a way to use all your zucchini - since there always seems to be a glut of them, turn to this cake. It’s quick to make and delicious. Sit down in the sun with a good book and a slice of this and you will view zucchini in a whole different way. I look forward to seeing zucchini in my garden for a number of reasons but mostly because I know there will be one of these cakes coming out of the oven.

Today I have a guest blog from my beautiful and feisty oldest child, Leah. She’s moved back home to live with us after a period flatting and now I get to benefit from all her fabulous baking and cooking skills. Although in this case the cookies were made for another reason entirely. I’ll let her do the explanation.

This is Leah with her little brother Isaac - he has chocolate on his face from consuming a rather large amount of these cookies - mostly when he thought I was not looking.

Without further ado - a guest blog from Leah.

It’s the infamous Leah (devourer of Tangelo cake), and this is my go-to cookie recipe. These Chocolate Chip Cookies are also known as…. ‘Sorry I Spilled Red Wine on Your Carpet Cookies’.

I made these cookies this time around because, as you probably gathered from the beginning of this post, I had a rather shall we say ‘clumsy’ night at my boyfriend’s flat the other night. The spillage of one glass was acceptable, albeit all over the back of my dress (I don’t know how it happened either!), and all over the carpet, but spilled glasses #2 and #3 were just plain ridiculous! Feeling rather seedy and headachey the following day, I sought out this recipe, and got baking!

Sorry I Spilled Red Wine on Your Carpet Cookies

It makes about 60 cookies, is flexible with quantities (especially chocolate), and the cookies turn out delicious every time!

• 2 cups of white flour
• 2 cups of rolled oats
• 1 cup of dessicated coconut
• 200g/7oz butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of soft brown sugar
• 1 cup of white sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• Chocolate chopped. Quantities optional!

Cream the butter and sugars together

Beat in the eggs

Add all the other ingredients, and mix.

Place teaspoon-fulls of cookie dough onto a tray

Bake at 180/350 for 8-12 minutes - adjust for your oven and if you like a crispy or chewy cookie.

These cookies are fantastic with the addition of nuts or raisins, mix up your chocolate types, use dark, milk, white or a combination of all three. This particular batch had the coconut omitted.

A really great basic recipe and perfect when you want to say “sorry”. A whiff of these warm chocolate chip cookies will melt anyone’s steely gaze.

How can you stay mad with someone in the face of such an honest and delicious cookie?

Next time you need to say you’re sorry - say it with cookies.

This Lamington packs a serious chocolate punch. How could I enter the Lamington contest over at Delicious Delicious Delicious and not submit the quintessential Australasian flavour combo. Jaffa. Which is Chocolate and Orange if you are not familiar with Kiwi/Aussie speak.

No frou frou and fluff on this Lamington, it’s a serious cake eaters task to get through one of these. It’s not a beauty contest winner - but if there was a tasty contest this would be giving those other Lamingtons a run for their money.

These are Jaffas. Little solid balls of chocolate surrounded by an intense orange candy shell.

They were the inspiration for this Lamington.

Double Chocolate Jaffa Lamingtons

The Orange Cake

I made up my favourite citrus and coconut cake, the recipe is over here on this page with some small modifications for the Lamington base.

• Use two Oranges - not Tangelos
• Bake in a 32 cm x 21 cm (13 inch X 9 inch) rectangular pan.
• Omit the syrup steps entirely.

It will not take as long to cook in this pan, so keep an eye on it.

Leave to cool completely before you attempt to make Lamingtons with it.

Orange chocolate Ganache

While your cake is cooking make your chocolate ganache. This is a soft ganache, it will not set firmly.

• 250 grams dark chocolate broken into squares
• 200 mls of cream
• 1 Tblspn Grand Marnier (optional- if using, reduce the amount of cream slightly)

Place your cream and chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Stir continuously.

Once your chocolate starts to melt remove from the heat, stir until all your chocolate has melted and the chocolate and cream have amalgamated.

Add in your Grand Marnier if you are using it at this point.

Set aside roughly 1/2 a cup of the ganache and place in the fridge to cool and thicken. Leave the remainder at room temperature - you may need to reheat this slightly before you use it to dip your Lamingtons.

Coating your Lamingtons

• 6 Cadbury Flake chocolate bars - If you cannot get these coarsely grated chocolate is a fine substitution

Cut your orange cake into squares roughly 2 inches/4 cm square. Take some of your cooled ganache from the fridge and spread on the top of one square. Sandwich another on the top.

Gently reheat the ganache that was not in the fridge till it is a runny consistency.

Using two forks dip your sandwiched cake squares into the bowl of slightly warm ganache to coat. I used a small measuring cup and poured over the top of the squares to minimise the cake crumbs in the ganache. You can place them in the fridge for a few minutes at this point to solidify the ganache a little if you wish.

Roll into the crumbled chocolate flakes and pat more on gently where there are gaps. Place carefully on a plate.

Store in the fridge in a covered container for up to 3 days.

You’d like to see the inside?

I have to warn you, these are impossible to eat in a tidy manner, but then again, half the fun is licking copious amounts of chocolate off your fingers.

After roughly 10 minutes - this was all that was left of a batch of these.

It was hard to get a photo and my photography skills are pretty shaky at the best of times - seriously, they went so fast.

There was also another slight variation on the one you see above with Almond Gianduja as a filling.

I love these home-made Lamingtons. New Zealand and Australian Bakeries - please stop selling the stale and crusty versions! To those Bakeries that sell lovely moist Lamingtons - keep up the good work!

I fell in love with Gianduja (pronounced, zhahn-DOO-yuh ) about a year ago when I was looking for something to include in a Christmas gift box for my family. I discovered it on Nila Rosa in the form of Peanut Gianduja. I made it - loved it, and then did not want to give it away. I ended up making another batch just to keep. It’s melt in the mouth delicious and so simple to make. It is a little fiddly coating the chocolates, but oh.. so worth it…

Just three simple ingredients will have the recipients of these chocolates stunned that you made them yourself. They taste amazing and with the use of chocolate transfers they look incredible too. I am not a skilled candy maker, in fact candy and I have a love hate relationship. I love it, but I cannot ever get it right. But this one even I can make. I adapted this slightly from the original recipe.

If you cannot get Almond butter (most health food stores stock it - along with hazelnut and cashew butter) you can use smooth peanut butter. I’ve given you a step by step so you can feel confident making this.

I’m sure there are all kinds of special chocolate making tools that would make this easier. But I wanted to just make this with the ordinary things that most of us would have on hand.

Almond Gianduja

• 250 grams white chocolate
• 250 grams Almond butter
• 300 grams dark chocolate
• 1 sheet of chocolate transfers cut into roughly 1 1/2 inch/3.5 cm squares

Note: It is just equal quantities of white chocolate and a nut butter of your choice. I find this amount is just right for an 8 inch/20 cm square pan

Wear an apron - it’s messy, chocolatey, messy.

First measure out your Almond butter into a bowl

Melt your white chocolate either in the microwave or in a bowl over hot water.

Mix your Almond butter and white chocolate together and pour into a parchment lined 20 cm/8in square cake pan.

This is the filling for your chocolates.

Now put it in the freezer for at least an hour until it is set and cold. It needs to be cold because when you dip it in the dark chocolate to coat - the warm chocolate will soften the filling and you will end up with a puddle instead of a chocolate almond filled marvel.

Once your filling is set and cold, melt your dark chocolate in a bowl over hot water or in the microwave. I like to use the microwave because I am less likely to overheat the chocolate and when it gets slightly thick I can give it another short burst to heat it slightly. You will find you need to reheat your dark chocolate several times while you are dipping and coating.

Place a piece of parchment on a small tray on your work surface - this is where you are going to coat your chocolates and you want a tray that will fit in the fridge.

Take your gianduja filling out of the freezer and cut one strip of filling roughly 1 inch/2.5 cm wide. Put the remaining gianduja in the freezer again. Just work with one strip at a time so that the filling stays as cold as possible. Go back and cut a new strip when you have completed the first, until you have used all the filling.

Cut your strip of gianduja into small squares - roughly 1 inch in size.

On a fork, dip into the melted dark chocolate, making sure that you coat all the chocolate - including the bottom. The filling is soft when thawed so if you have little gaps in your chocolate coating your filling will leak out.

Make sure you scrape off any excess chocolate from the bottom of the fork, I just tend to use the side of the jug I melted the chocolate in. It seems to work ok for me. If your chocolate gets too thick, reheat it slightly.

Place carefully on to your parchment lined tray. Place a square of the chocolate transfer on the top of each chocolate pressing down ever so lightly just to make sure the transfer is in contact with the chocolate.

When you have completed your tray full, pop them in the fridge.

When the chocolate is completely set - don’t be tempted earlier - slowly remove the transfers. This could be about 20 minutes. Be patient - your chocolate needs to be set, if you rush this bit your transfers will not errr.. transfer. I discovered this because I am not a very patient person….at least when it comes to chocolate.

But I know you are patient and will wait to pull off the transfers and this will be your result.

Package up your chocolates if they are going to be a gift - or  just eat them and be proud of yourself for making something gorgeous.

It’s pouring with rain and today seemed like the perfect day to make something with one small slightly bored child who was overdosing on Pokemon games.

I remembered seeing somewhere online about a 5 minute chocolate cake cooked in a mug in the microwave. Of course as usual I missed the actual chocolate cake in a mug craze, I’m usually two steps behind the pace. But I thought that might just be perfect for Isaac to make on a rainy day.

So we put on our aprons (he insists that I wear mine when I cook with him) and got the ingredients out to start. This is not the best chocolate cake in the world, but it’s pretty awesome if you are five years old and you made it yourself.

Chocolate Mugcake - Chef Isaac

• 4 Tblspns sugar
• 4 Tblsps of flour
• 2 Tblspns cocoa
• 1/2 tspn baking powder
• 6 squares of chocolate chopped or 3 Tblspns chocolate chips
• 1 egg
• 1 Tblspn of oil
• 3 Tblspns buttermilk or milk
• a dash of vanilla.
• pinch of salt

Use a large mug for this, or divide the mixture between two mugs

First add your dry ingredients into the mug - sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt

Then crack in your egg - don’t get the shell in there!

Add in your oil, milk, vanilla and give it a good stir - make sure there are no lumps.

Lastly add in your chocolate chunks.

Put your mugcake in the microwave and keep a little eye on it until it starts to puff up over the top of your mug. Isaac’s took about one minute 30 seconds.

Be very careful when you take it out - it’s HOT - I took Isaac’s out for him.

You can tip it on to a plate - or just put a big scoop of icecream in the cup and eat it while it’s warm.

If you put big chocolate chunks in there, they will be melted and gooey.

Isaac was kind enough to share his chocolate cake with us.

Things Isaac learned making this cake.

• If you have no chocolate chips you can chop chocolate
• If you stir too hard, flour comes out of the cup
• When cakes cook they puff up
• When a cake is ready it’s springy on the top when you poke it
• Cocoa has lumps in it - Mummy does not know why.
• How to make the microwave go for one minute
• Cake batter before it’s cooked does not taste that good.
• It’s nice to share with the adults that are lingering around your plate

A great activity for kids on a rainy day, and a quick fun recipe if you are having a chocolate cake emergency and you are all grown up.