Pengtun Cooking- Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Clementine-Honey Glaze

It’s been awhile without a post, I know, but things have gotten suddenly super busy around here. This is one of the few lulls I’ve had for awhile. I do intend to write about my day-to-day stuff soon, but for now I’m just sharing this, since I started it a week ago and only need to finish it up.

It occurs to me that, as much as I’ve alluded to my various cooking adventures, I have yet to actually do any sort of cooking/baking-focused posts. When I got here, I spent a lot of time googling all things rice cooker baking-related. I didn’t find a ton. I haven’t found much info in general that connects to foodie cooking in limited kitchens. However, I’ve experimented, and while some experiments have been less than successful, others have been glorious. Thus, I’m beginning today the dissemination of said successes. Granted, I have neither measuring cups nor temperatures nor actual baking/cooking times, so everything is very approximate, but perhaps these recipes will serve as inspiration for others in my shoes. Rice cooker baking is possible, it’s not a disaster to experiment with, and sometimes it turns out quite well indeed.

I begin with this cake because it was, aside from banana bread, perhaps my most successful rice cooker endeavor yet.

Chocolate-Zucchini Cake with Clementine-Honey Glaze

• Half a large zucchini (about 1 cup), grated
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• ¼ cup milk (I used whole, ‘cause it’s what’s here, but I bet other types would work too)
• 2-3 TBS vegetable oil, plus more to grease the rice cooker (Note: I realize that this is very little oil, and if I were baking in a traditional oven I would likely increase it, but the steaming process doesn’t require as much. Plus, milk here is all whole milk, so there’s additional fat content there)
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• a scant ¼ cup cocoa powder
• dash cinnamon
• about 1-1 ½ cups flour. How much will depend. You want a thick but easily pourable batter.
• about 1 large chocolate bar (3-4 oz, maybe?) chopped. Or you could use ½-3/4 cups chocolate chips, if you’re in a place with such things

Quick breads and cakes are things you’re supposed to be careful with. You’re supposed to mix the wets and dries separately, combining swiftly so as to keep the baking soda from reacting before getting into the oven. I have never been so precise, but especially since entering my new abode all such procedure has gone out the window.

I usually start with the egg, because that way I can beat it before adding anything else. Then I throw in the sugars and oil and milk and mix. I would also have added vanilla extract if I had it at the time, but I didn’t. After that, it’s time for the dries. You can mix them separately, which makes incorporating the cocoa powder a bit easier, or just throw the dries into the big bowl one by one.

Finally, mix in the grated zucchini and the chocolate chips/chunks. You should have a thick but pourable batter. If it's too watery, add more flour. If too thick, add milk or oil. Transfer to your greased rice cooker (or, y’know, a loaf pan, if you are in possession of an oven), spreading to even out the batter if necessary, and start the cook cycle.

I usually end up doing two cook cycles, with period of maybe 15 minutes in between while the cooker cools down. Every rice cooker is different though; some even have cake cycles. Sometimes my cakes don’t cook through before the bottom burns, but I’ve found that flipping the cake, while yielding a more evenly-cooked baked good, is usually less than conducive to keeping said cake in one piece. Depending on whether the cake is one to be shared or to be gobbled in private the “to flip or not to flip” debate can lead to different conclusions. However, this cake cooked through so well that flipping was unnecessary. Luck, perhaps, or maybe it was just the zucchini thanking me for using it in such an utterly unexpected way (as far as Chinese born-and-raised zucchini are concerned).

Once the cake is done, flip it onto a plate. I usually do this by using the rice server to loosen the cake as much as possible, very quickly flipping removing the rice pan and turning it upside-down, praying all the while that the cake drops out.

Glaze:

• One small Clementine (or perhaps ¼ of a typical orange), juiced, peel reserved
• 2-3 TBS sugar
• 2-3 TBS water
• 3-4 TBS milk
• 1 TBS honey
• dash cinnamon

Combine the sugar, water, Clementine peel, and juice in a saucepan (or skillet, since that’s what I had) and simmer, adding the milk after the sugar is mostly melted. Watch it carefully, stirring to keep from burning (quite a feat, on a hot plate), and add more milk or sugar as necessary to reach a thin syrupy texture.

Use a toothpick to poke holes all over the top of the cake, then spoon the glaze on. Eat and be blissful.

So there you have it. If anybody out there is another budding rice cooker baker, I’d love to hear about it. We can swap horror/success stories. And hopefully the next time some poor displaced American foodie googles rice cooker baking, he/she’ll have a few more options.