Eat Courgette, Maple and Walnut Cake Oh My

In the midst of waiting to take some photos of other things I've got to share (I need my natural light and also my beauty sleep so no night shoots for me). I am sharing my Courgette, Maple and Walnut Cake with you, really a Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days recipe with a few minor additions that add a big punch.

 It's not often I stick to a recipe, because I don't have all the ingredients/there's always something to throw in, but this Hummingbird Bakery recipe is a good un' if you do and the icing is so good like cream cheese icing but with yoghurt so it's really tangy. As I said I don't often stick to recipes in this once I switched half the amount of sugar for some maple syrup in the cake and added lemon curd as a filling which really went with the yoghurt icing. I urge you if you are to make this recipe swap half the sugar for some maple syrup, the nuttiness really compliments the cake and is a must.

One thing with Hummingbird Bakery recipes is that I always cut down the ingredients by half and still end up with a huge cake, reference huge cake below.

Courgette, Maple and Walnut Cake
1 egg
150ml oil
75g brown sugar
4 tbsps maple syrup
A tiny squeeze of vanilla paste (with the seeds)
150g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cinnamon
A sprinkle of nutmeg and ginger
150g grated courgette
50g chopped walnuts
For the icing/filling:
The recipe says to use 120g butter, 375g icing powder, 35g natural yoghurt, 1 tsp cinnamon. I'll be honest I just do it till it tastes nice and is the right consistency.
Lemon curd

Step 1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line a cake tin if required, although I normally use a pop up one which I don't line.

Step 2. In a bowl mix together all of the dry ingredients, n a jug mix together the eggs, oil, sugar, maple syrup and vanilla then slowly whilst stirring fold the wet mix into the dry. Then add the courgette and chopped walnuts and stir to combine.

Step 3. Divide the cake batter into tins, or bake one and then the other, or eat all the batter as is and do not finish the remaining steps. If you decide not to eat the batter now bake the cakes in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

Step 4. Remove the cakes from the oven and leave to cool. In the meantime, you can start creaming your butter so it's less lumpy when you add the sugar. Add the icing sugar and cinnamon and cream stirring until it's smooth and delicious tasting, then add the yoghurt and mix it in.

Step 5. Once the cakes are cool, assemble them so you have a layer of lemon curd and yoghurt frosting in the middle (do the curd layer first). I then frosted the top of the cake with the remaining icing and added some fresh figs, scattered a few walnuts over the top and drizzled some maple syrup over it because it wasn't sweet enough..? I'm a maple addict!

If you haven't got the Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days book you should look at the link above. I highly recommend them and base a lot of my cakes on their mixes. Plus they are always fluffy and light, with an exception of a bad experience with some chilli, cheese and sweetcorn muffins.