chocolate zucchini cupcakes with chocolate cream cheese icing

chocolate zucchini cupcakes with chocolate cream cheese icing

• 10 Aug 2026

As the 10 year old birthday girl has simple tastes I decided to make cupcakes for her bithday celebration. I took a tried and tested chocolate cake recipe from Clare Scrine and turned it into cupcakes. To reduce the ingredient quantity to suit the tin size I had to reverse engineer the process so out came the calculator, a pen and paper. 

The batter needed 1½ eggs but I didn't feel like cracking a second egg so I added a little more sour cream to the batter. I wasn't sure about the bake time either, so I started with 15 minutes and the cupcakes weren't quite ready so I added another 5 minutes and they were done.

Here's the recipe for you which makes 6 cupcakes, adapted from a Clare Scrine recipe. The icing recipe is generous so you may have some leftover. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Chocolate zucchini cupcakes with chocolate cream cheese icing

Cake
1 egg
75g sour cream
100ml/90g vegetable oil (or other neutral oil)
50ml black coffee, cooled or water
1 tsp vanilla extract 
110g finely grated zucchini
135g brown sugar
scant ½ tsp sea salt flakes
120g self-raising flour
scant ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda 
35g  Dutch-processed cocoa powder

Chocolate cream cheese icing
125g cream cheese, at room temperature
125g unsalted butter, at room temperature 
1 tsp vanilla extract 
Pinch sea salt flakes 
140g icing sugar
25g dutched cocoa powder 

60g melted dark chocolate, cooled

To top
Dark chocolate flakes or sprinkles

Method
Preheat the oven to 190°C, conventional. Grease a 6 hole Texas muffin tin and dust with flour or cocoa. If you like you can place a small piece of baking paper into the base of each hole.

In a large bowl, whisk together the egg, sour cream, vegetable oil, cooled coffee/water and vanilla until well combined and a little frothy. Add the zucchini and stir well to combine. 

In a separate large bowl, combine the sugar, salt, flour, bicarbonate of soda and cocoa powder. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir gently until just combined, ensuring you scrape right to the bottom of the bowl to mix well. 

Distribute the mixture evenly between the muffin holes (about 110g/hole), then transfer to the oven and bake for 20–25 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre of each cake comes out mostly clean. It’s important not to overcook the cakes, so keep a close eye on them. Once cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool for a few minutes. Carefully loosen each cake with an offset spatula before unmoulding and placing on a cooling rack.

Chocolate cream-cheese icing
Place the cream cheese, butter, vanilla extract and salt flakes into the bowl of an electric stand mixer. Sift the icing sugar and cocoa on top. Beat with the paddle attachment for 10 minutes on speed 4 until fluffy. Stir through the cooled melted chocolate. Store covered in the fridge until needed. If the cream cheese icing is too firm, zap it in the microwave for a few seconds to rewarm.

Just before serving, top each cake with a generous dollop of the cream cheese icing and some chocolate flakes. 

The cupcakes were a hit and were described as the 'most delicious chocolate pillows' and best of all, the non fruit eating birthday girl didn't notice the zucchini in the cake. Even this non chocolate believer thought they weren't too bad.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian