I Made the Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes Today

As you will see it's been a cooking marathon Sunday!

Of course I did not follow the recipe exactly as I posted it a couple of days ago. For one thing, I changed the chocolate chips to raisins as I wanted more of a breakfast muffin than a cupcake.

Whenever I use raisins in cookies, etc. I first put them a saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil. I then turn off the stove and let them sit for about 1/2 an hour. Instead of hard little blobs in the muffins, I ended up with soft, moist morsels.

I also used walnuts instead of pecans because that's what I had on hand. I used buttermilk instead of regular milk because I had some of that in the freezer and I wanted to get rid of it to free up freezer space.

I made some in a mini bundt pan, some as hearts and some in my overpriced silicone muffin tins that I have only used once before (with less than ideal results). I sprayed everything with this Crisco baking spray. Even the silicone muffins tins which are not supposed to stick.
They all turned out quite well.



I still had buttermilk to use up so I decided to make a non chocolate batch. I had a recipe for zuke bread that I got in 1977 from a Coast Guard wife when I attended a wine tasting party at her house. It didn't use buttermilk, so I just made up my own recipe based on that one. I decided to use carrots and zucchini for the nice orange specks of color the carrots would add. They turned out great--look how pretty they are.


Only one of them stuck. Guess which pan it was. It was the silicone muffin pan made specifically as nonstick! Don't waste your money on those things.
I STILL had buttermilk left and did not want to refreeze it, so I googled "zucchini chocolate cake buttermilk" and found a recipe at cooks.com. It was almost identical to the chocolate cupcake recipe, except it used one cup less flour.


I just sprinkled the chocolate chips on the top of each 9-inch layer.

When they were cooked, I wrapped each layer and froze them. I stuck the recipe in the tin in case it's so good that I want to remember the recipe.
I will frost it with cream cheese frosting when I decide to serve it.

As if all the baking wasn't enough, I decided to use some of my fresh veggies to make a beef vegetable soup.
Don't you love all the bright colors?

It turned out good. We had it for lunch and will have it again for tomorrow's dinner...and probably AGAIN later in the week. I made a huge pot of it.

I cooked ALL morning, but now I have a freezer full of muffins and a few dinners for the week. It was cool this morning so it was a perfect day to use the oven.