Savoury Zucchini Cake
Mild buttery zucchini (courgette) is the most versatile vegetable I bring into my kitchen. In Australia, zucchinis are in season year round and as the price only fluctuates slightly, I make good use of them. In winter zucchinis take a starring role in soups and vegetable braises, in autumn when they tend to get bigger, I stuff and bake them or make cake. Tiny spring time zucchinis I pop onto pizza or add them whole at the last minute to spicy meat dishes, then in summer I use them to add low joule nutritious bulk to fritters, flans and pasta sauces.
Savoury zucchini cake I make year round. I serve it hot for lunch with salad, I take on picnics and I put it into sandwiches and wraps with crunchy lettuce and garlic mayo. It’s equally good hot or cold.
This is a continually evolving recipe that has even at times morphed into a vegetarian alternative, but I repeatedly come back to the original core ingredients of zucchini, bacon, cheese and eggs because it tastes so good. I have had to replace the plain wheat flour in the original concept with a mix of gluten free alternatives, but to be honest, no one would know!!
1/4 cup buckwheat flour
1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup gluten free plain (AP) flour
2 teaspoons gluten free baking powder
1/4 cup instant polenta
Good grinding of black pepper
1 teaspoon sea salt
3 medium zucchinis grated (roughly 3 large cups)
1 cup shredded tasty cheese
4 short loin rashers of bacon, finely chopped
3 spring onion, greens only, finely sliced
1 heaped teaspoon Dijon mustard
4 eggs
5-6 small tomatoes, quartered and deseeded.
Pre heat the oven to 180C.
Grease a 20cm springform cake tin and line it with baking paper.
Sift the flours and baking powder into a large bowl.
Add the polenta, salt and pepper and lightly mix.
Lightly whisk together the eggs and mustard.
Add the zucchini, bacon, cheese and spring onions to the bowl then pour the egg mixture over.
Stir with a wooden spoon to thoroughly combine.
Tip the mixture into the cake tin, smooth to the edges with the back of a spoon.
Arrange the wedges of tomato on top.
Bake until cooked and lightly browned about 45 minutes.
The centre of the cake should feel firm and spring back when touched.
Remove the cake from the oven to a cooling wire and allow to rest in the tin for 10 minutes. Remove the sides from the tin and serve hot with salad, or chill to serve cold later.
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30 comments on “Savoury Zucchini Cake”
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Please Pass the Recipe by Sandra Gay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
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Gee this looks good. I love zucchini – so versatile & healthy. Will have to try this. Pinned 🙂
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Enjoy…..
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Love a good zucchini slice – my mother in law makes a ripper. The round cake shape, cherry tomatoes, three flour types and dash of dijon make yours a much more sophisticated offering though. I can absolutely imagine serving this up for brunch. Big YUM.
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Funny how zucchini slice is so common here in Australia, but little known elsewhere, it such a good dish. Having to live without wheat has led to many delicious reinventions, hence the three types of flour
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Not only a delicious sounding savory cake but so pretty as well.
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Thanks Karen, it’s a delicious dish to serve a group for brunch
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I love zucchini! but here in Montreal they are not tasty like in Italy, but I’m sure that if I use them exactly how you did they are going to be amazing! Beautiful and original recipe, thanks for sharing!!!
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Savoury zucchinis and slices became popular in Australia in the seventies when people realized how easy and prolific they were to grow in the home vegie patch. Most families have a favourite, I’m happy to share ours.
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This is a new dish for me and I like what I see. It would make the perfect brunch item and is certainly something my friends haven’t seen. The fact that it includes bacon almost assures universal acceptance. 🙂
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You’re right John about everyone liking bacon. This is an old Aussie favourite, I’ve never seen an equivalent from another culture. You can just substitute the equivalent quantity of flour with AP flour! and omit the bacon if you choose.
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Omit the bacon? You’re kidding, right? 😀
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Yeah, just kidding!!o
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People do double-blink when I say zucchini is probably the most used vegetable in my kitchen also! Love the current ‘bigger’ ones and have given them both minced meat and vegetarian fillings – spicy lentils are delightful !! Have not made this for eons but you have tickled my taste buds ~ have to adjust my different flours 🙂 !
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I love it when someone reminds me of a dish I haven’t made for eons. Originally this needed self raising flour, 3/4 – 1 cup depending on the wetness of the zucchinis, but wheat is off our diet so I had to substitute. The combo I chose worked really well.
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This will be great in the summer. Our garden produces soooooooooooo much courgette!!!!!
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It’s an incredibly versatile bake, enjoy….
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Hi Sandra, I do like a zucchini slice, I make a similar one by Belinda Jeffery. It is a good stand by when feeding vegetarians.
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Yes zucchini slice/cake is an oldie but a goodie, a great quick and easy standby.
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Well, what a great idea and a clever way to make use of zucchini which is abundant around here in the summer.
Hiw do you get your photos to display side by side? I can not seem to figure it out?
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Hi Stacey, the zucchini cake is an old favourite, and yes it helps use up the seasonal glut. I use a free IPad app called collage to arrange my photos. The finished collage saves as a single image which makes them easy to insert into WP. I use both the PC and the iPad for posting so I just drop the images/collages into Dropbox so I can easily move them back and forth. I hope that helps a little, cheers Sandra
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It does help, thanks so much!
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this looks so tasty and fresh!
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Thanks it’s a great allrounder
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What an awesome idea and can be served any time of the day. Thanks for sharing. Check out surreykitchen.com. I love your blog and look forward to reading more. Emma xx
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Hi Emma, glad you like the zucchini cake recipe. Heading over to your kitchen in Surrey to take a tour right now….
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Looks really delicious and puts me in mind of those traditional Breton savoury buckwheat cakes. The tomatoes were a nice touch!
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Thanks, it’s an old favourite, good for breakfast lunch or tea. Excellent picnic food too
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Yum…this is a recipe that goes back a long long way! I love the way your cooked it in a springform pan and added the tomatoes… has brain ticking over about doing individual mini ones in some baby springform pans I have 🙂 xxx
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I like that idea! It’s definitely an oldie but a goodie, I can’t believe I haven’t posted it until now xxx
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