OK, so I know this sounds a little odd, but it is absolutely delicious and definitely worth a try! Vegetables are being used more and more in our sweet treats, Carrot Cake being the more obvious option and using beetroot in chocolate cake also works really well, but courgette adds a lovely flavour and a really moist texture to cake too.

This cake will keep really well due to its moistness and I think is very easy to do – I’m not the best cake maker, so using a lined loaf tin really helps!

Recipe

150g sugar

150g soft butter

3 eggs

175g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

250g grated courgettes

3 tbsp milk

3 limes, the zest only (save the juice for the syrup)

50g walnuts or pistachios, chopped

For the syrup

40g sugar

The juice from the 3 limes above

1 lime, zested 

Preheat your oven to 180C.

Grease and line a loaf tin. Next, cream together the butter and sugar until soft and creamy, you can use an electric hand whisk for this. Put the eggs into a jug and whisk up. Add the eggs to the sugar and butter mix, bit by bit and mixing well. Sift the flour and baking powder together into the mix and stir well. Then mix in the courgettes, milk, nuts (if using) and zest of the limes.

Pout the batter into the lined loaf tin and then bake in the oven for 50-60 minutes, until brown and risen. You can test it’s cooked by inserting a skewer into the middle, and if it comes out clean it’s ready.

Next, make the syrup (you can do this while the cake is cooking). Put the juice of the three limes and the sugar into a pan and turn on the heat, stirring continuously until the sugar has dissolved. Let boil for about 2 minutes until syrupy. Stir in the lime zest.

When the cake is cooked, poke the top of the cake all over with a skewer and spoon over the lime syrup all over the cake. Leave to cool.

Tip the cake out of the tin and serve sliced.