Zucchini cake - general principles and methods of cooking
We are accustomed to the fact that the cake is something grand, sweet-air-calorie, festive and hearty dessert. However, this concept may mean something completely different - a multi-layered whole dish, colorful, exquisitely decorated.
There are unsweetened varieties of cake. For their preparation use meat, liver, vegetables, mushrooms - in general, a variety of products. At the same time, not necessarily a beautiful unsweetened product should be high-calorie - you can use the most unexpected products, for example, light and affordable diet zucchini. Why not? A zucchini cake is the most suitable if the soul asks for something original, tasty and nutritious, but not threatening our figure with extra kilos. Moreover, the zucchini season is in full swing.
If you show a little imagination, you can decorate it so that there is no doubt - this is a real cake. And the most interesting is also a very necessary product for health. Zucchini boasts an excellent set of its beneficial properties. After all, no matter which side you look at, its qualities are simply amazing. An inconspicuous vegetable with a pronounced sweetish taste gives potassium, iron, calcium, magnesium. Without them, as is known, the heart, brain, liver and muscles cannot exist. It is a real regulator and cleaner of the body, tirelessly “working” on the normalization of water-salt metabolism in the body, cholesterol, cleaning the blood and removing the radionuclides.
Since the 16th century, since it came to our continent, the mistresses of Europe have come up with several dozen dishes. Before that, Native Americans of the Iroquois tribe considered zucchini to be their main staple food, along with pumpkin, beans and corn.
In Indian gardens these plants grew together. Probably, the Indians as well as we adored squash caviar, which is the sauce and snack. Undoubtedly, the snack zucchini cake is tasty and healthy, the role of dough in it will be roasted or baked zucchini, the role of cream is garlic sauce. You can use colored vegetables and greens as decoration, it will be very beautiful.
Squash cake - food preparation
Zucchini and squash are pumpkin varieties. It is best to use them in immature form. Fruits 20-25 cm long are used together with the peel. If the squash is overripe, it already has large seeds, they need to be cut. The very young fruits can be eaten raw, well, and fully matured in food is not used. We use mayonnaise as a sauce. Of course, the best way is to get homemade sauce according to original recipes. In extreme cases, you can choose a less-calorie mayonnaise, although it is not so tasty.
Squash cake - the best recipes
Recipe 1: Squash cake with mushrooms
Squashes do not have their own distinct taste, and therefore are easily combined with any products. Zucchini and mushrooms - a great combination, familiar to us from other dishes. A beautifully decorated dish will delight us on a holiday and just cheer up at a family dinner.
Ingredients: zucchini (2 pcs.), Onions (2 pcs.), Mushrooms (400 grams), eggs (2 pcs.), Potato starch (3-4 tablespoons), a little flour, salt, pepper, mayonnaise (half a small packs).
Cooking method
Rub the zucchini on a coarse grater, add eggs and starch, salt and pepper. Add as much flour, like on pancakes. Stir. Fry zucchini pancakes for the entire size of the pan.
Filling: cut mushrooms and onions, fry in butter until golden brown. Prepare mayonnaise - squeeze garlic and mix. We form our cake: we squash the squash pancakes with mayonnaise with garlic flavor and put the stuffing on top. We decorate with a sprig of parsley and mayonnaise droplets.
Recipe 2: Zucchini egg cake with bell pepper
This recipe can not be called too easy - spicy taste, too soft texture. Cakes are soft and moist.
Ingredients: zucchini (700-800 grams), bell pepper (1 pc), baking powder for the dough (1 l), flour (1 cup), starch (2 tablespoons), vegetable oil (5- 6 tablespoons), salt (half a teaspoon).
For the sauce: garlic, eggs (3 pieces), mayonnaise (250 grams), salt. Method of preparation
Grate the young squash, (if the squash begins to ripen, they should be cleaned). Salt and leave for 15 minutes (so that he put the juice). Add oil, vegetable oil, chopped Bulgarian pepper, starch, salt and greens. Gradually add flour to make the dough almost thick. We fry the cakes in this way: pour vegetable oil into the pan, warm it up and lay out three spoons of dough, level it and give a smooth shape. For 30 minutes, leave the flour gluten swollen from the juice. If the juice is too much, add about another spoonful of flour. We fry under the closed lid for about 10 minutes, turn over, another five minutes - and the cake is ready. In the same way we will prepare all the cake layers, as it turns out. Add oil to the pan for each cake. Filling: mix garlic and mayonnaise, lay layers with chopped eggs and greens, coat with mayonnaise. The top is decorated with flowers from stripes and circles of bell pepper (yellow, orange or red) and eggs, greens. It turns out fabulously beautiful cake.
Recipe 3: Squash cake with tomatoes Suluguni cheese
Incredibly delicious cake turns out, in which the main emphasis is placed on a combination of zucchini and tomatoes. Sour sweet notes of tomato and slightly sweet zucchini. Who among us does not know this delicious taste? And now we add the Suluguni cheese - the minimum of the expended forces and means - we get a delicious dish.
Ingredients: zucchini is better than young medium-sized (2-3 pieces), tomatoes (3-4 pieces), cucumbers (2 pieces), flour (0.5-1 tbsp), eggs - 2 pieces ., salt, parsley and basil, garlic, suluguni100 gr. mayonnaise, vegetable oil.
Method of preparation
Rub the squash on a fine grater, take the juice away, add the eggs, soda salt flour, mix until the lumps disappear. A softer dough is obtained if the amount of flour is minimal. To make the frying cakes to turn over easily, take a frying pan of small diameter. After turning the dough is better to bake under the lid. Rub finely cheese and squeeze garlic, mix with mayonnaise. We form a cake: we grease the cakes with “cream”, spread on each layer the circles of tomatoes and cucumbers. Top layer give the appearance of this cake with slices of cucumber, tomato and greens.
Recipe 4: Squash cake with meat
This very hearty dish will appeal to everyone - both children and adults. Ingredients can be varied, instead of cheese, add mushrooms, add a little eggplant, etc. It looks very attractive because of the original method of formation. - slices of zucchini stacked sideways, the cake turns out ribbed, in the form of a cupcake.
Ingredients: 2 zucchini, onion (2 pcs.), 500 grams of minced minced meat, tomatoes (1-2), salt, vegetable oil, ketchup, mayonnaise, pepper, carrot (1 pc.), Rice (100 g.)
Zucchini cut into slices, lightly fried and laid in a cake pan sideways in the form of a flower. Between them, put the mince, mixed with zazharka and rice, grease with mayonnaise, sprinkle with cheese. Sent in the oven for 30 minutes. Hot cake cool, turn on a large plate, decorate with ketchup and dill.
Zucchini cake - useful tips from experienced chefs
- Mayonnaise can be successfully replaced with sour cream. Prepare it in this way: squeeze out a lot of garlic and mix with salt, sour cream and finely chopped dill. It should be thick. When forming the cake, let the cake to cool completely, and only after that, coat with sour cream impregnation. Do not forget to leave a little ordinary sour cream to beautify the top cake.
- Experts nutritionists say that for zucchini diets - the future. This product can be eaten without problems up to one and a half kilogram a day. Since the pumpkin sibling perfectly removes fluid from the body, it helps the ladies to cope with cellulite - a terrible orange peel.
