Such a surprisingly easy recipe for a wonderfully moist and healthier chocolate cake.  It's a great way for treating the kids whilst getting one of their 5 a day in. Courgettes are wonderfully easy to grate (much easier than carrots) and help keep the cake moist.  I adjusted the recipe from the BBC to make a small  Oogaa bowl size cake that contained less sugar than usual.

Ingredients

• 120g self-raising flour
• 13g cocoa powder
• 1/3 tsp mixed spice
• 60mL extra-virgin olive oil
• 50g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 tsp salt
• 150mL finely grated courgette - grating the courgettes fine means the courgettes are much more hidden than coarsely grated (measure by volume in a measuring jug, but it's about 1/2 big courgette; if using an overgrown one, peel first and take out seeds)

Ingredients for a 6 inch cake

• 350g self-raising flour
• 50g cocoa powder
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 175ml extra-virgin olive oil
• 150g caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp salt
• 500mL finely grated courgettes - grating the courgettes fine means the courgettes are much more hidden than coarsely grated (measure by volume in a measuring jug, but it's about 2 medium courgettes; if using 1 overgrown one, peel first and take out seeds)
• Chocolate icing - 200g dark chocolate (chopped) and 100mL double cream

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.
2. Grease an Oogaa bowl or grease and/or line a 6inch/24cm cake tin with greaseproof paper.
3. In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, mixed spice and 1 tsp salt).
4. In another bowl, combine the wet ingredients (olive oil, sugar, eggs, vanilla essence and grated courgette).
5. Mix the dry and wet mixture until just combined, then fold in the toasted hazelnuts. 
6. Pour the mixture in to the cake tin and place in the middle of the oven and bake for about 40-50 mins, or until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 10 mins, then turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool.
7. You can make some chocolate icing by bringing the cream to the boil in a saucepan.  Pour this over the chocolate in a bowl and stir.  Let it cool a little before pouring it over the cake.