CURIOUSLY DELICIOUS COURGETTE, LEMON AND PISTACHIO TRAY BAKE

Sometimes I see a foodie trend pop up regularly in magazines and on TV which I'm not really quite sure will work. Courgettes being used to make cakes was one of them. I just didn't like the sound of it at all but last weekend I bit the bullet and decided to give it a go as I had been quite curious about how it would taste. I'm so glad I did as it transpired that it would actually taste most delicious especially when flavored with ground pistachio and plenty of zingy lemon both in the cake and the lemon curd icing on top!

So what you have here is essentially a rather lovely lemon cake with a few nuts and of course that special ingredient of courgette thrown into the mix too. I could talk about how you could change the recipe to suit your tastes but that's really taking away the specialness of this cake. What I will suggest to you is that if you are still not convinced  by courgette in cakes and just want to make a more traditional lemon cake then click here to be taken to all my yummy lemon recipes and I'm sure you'll find something bad ass for yourself there.

So, on wards and upwards to the recipe which you will find below. If you don't have a food processor to blitz the pistachios into a fine crumb you can bash them in a pestle and mortar or go old school with a rolling pin but this will take a while so allow yourself more time to complete the cake. Recipe below will make around 20 squares. Go on, give into your curiosity and give it a try;

Lemon And Pistachio Courgette Cake 

140g Courgette

150g Pistachios 

200g Softened Butter

250g Golden Caster Sugar

280g Plain Flour

1 Tsp Baking Powder

1 Tsp Bicarbonate Of Soda

3 Eggs

140g Greek Yogurt

Juice And Zest Of 3 Lemons

175g Icing Sugar

2 Heaped Tbsp Lemon Curd

1. Begin by greasing and lining a 25cm square tin with grease proof paper and heat your oven up to 180 degrees (160 fan).
2. Grate the courgette and then leave to one side. Take the pistachios and whizz them in a food processor to form a fine crumb.
3. Place the blitzed pistachios into a bowl along with the the butter, golden caster sugar, flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, egg, yogurt and the juice and zest of two of the lemons and beat everything together until well combined. Add the courgette and gently fold through until evenly distributed amongst the batter.
4. Pour the cake batter into the lined baking tin and pop in the oven to bake for 30-35 minutes until the top is golden brown and an inserted skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool slightly before removing from the tin, removing the paper and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack.
5. Once the cake has cooled, tip the icing sugar into a bowl and squeeze in the lemon juice in small amounts and mixing together until a thick but runny batter has formed (you maynot need all the lemon juice for this!). Drizzle the icing over the top of the cake.
6. Spoon the lemon curd into a small bowl and stir vigorously with a spoon to loosen it up so that it's runny enough to drizzle. Drizzle the lemon curd over the top of the cake.

If you have any pistachios left over you can chop them up into small chunks to chuck them over the top of the icing for a final decorative flourish. Wait for the icing to set before cutting the cake into around 16-20 equal sized pieces depending on how big you want the squares and get stuck in. Don't be scared of the courgettes, they actually make this quite a delicious sponge and are subtle enough to allow the pistachio flavour to come through once that initial sweet zing from the lemon curd icing has subsided. It is quite curiously one of the best lemony cakes I've made and it's made with grated courgettes! Who'd of thought it!