“Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

William Shakespeare

I know I said I’d not be baking quite so much and that I’d overdone the amount of cupcakes recently but I couldn’t stop myself from baking yesterday, I had so much else to do but somehow I found myself at the baking cupboard door pulling out flour and sugar amongst other things, trying to convince myself that I had to bake because I’d two courgettes to eat up, as for the logic in that go figure?

I baked spiced chocolate and courgette cakes adapted from Little Cafe Cakes by one of my favourite food writers Julie Le Clerc. I’ve made chocolate & zucchini cake before and it went down a treat so I decided to be a little more bold with the flavours this time and experiment with the flours a little too.

I substituted wholemeal spelt flour for the specified wholemeal flour and sunflower and wheat flour for the white flour mentioned which gave a slightly nubby texture and nutty flavour to the cakes.

As always it’s best to use top quality ingredients and this becomes especially vital with the cocoa, it has to be a dark, rich, almost bitter one as the flavour is so pronounced in these cakes.

The courgettes are not really tasted at all in the cake, they just lend a little chewiness and a great moisture to the cake, making them delightful as a pudding, the taste is so decadent alongside a wee drop of fresh double cream.

A big thank you to my forum friend Francesca for the cake cases, she sent them all the way from Israel and don’t they look fantastic, gold on chocolate is a lovely colour combination and at this time of year it looks so festive too. To enhance the festive look further I dotted the cakes with little gold dragees.