Using up the glut: Marrow cake recipe
In my previous post about saving marrow/courgette seeds, I mentioned that the marrow I had was just going from ripe to overripe. I had no particular plans to eat the marrow – we like courgettes a lot but thought, since the variety was billed as a courgette, it would be tasteless as a marrow. I was happy just using it as a seed nursery – but when I’d stripped out the seeds, it seemed a waste to throw it in the compost. If the chickens liked courgettes/marrows, I’d have given it to them but they’re strangely fussy birds so I was left with pounds and pounds of edible flesh.
I test fried a slice and judged it to be alright – not as flavourful as its younger siblings but certainly not bad. Tough skin though – edible but tough, so that had to go. I used half of it to make a cheesy-bacony comfort food bake thing (a variation on this recipe from the Indy but with mixed cheese – parmesan and jarlsberg – because that’s all we had in and also goats cheese makes me gip) – I had some on its own last night and we’ll have the rest tonight with pork chops in a tomatoey sauce. The other half, I used to make a marrow/courgette cake.
Marrow cake/courgette cake recipe
Ingredients
1 large egg (I used 2 medium ones since our girls aren’t laying truly large yet)
200g of caster sugar
100g of melted butter
1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
300g of courgette/marrow, coarse grated
300g of self-raising flour
75g of finely chopped nuts
1tsp of cinnamon
1tsp of baking powder
Recipe
1. Grease a 2lb loaf tin better than I did, and pre-heat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4.
2. In one bowl, mix together all the first lot of ingredients (the wet ones – eggs, butter, courgettes & vanilla, plus the sugar) and in another bigger bowl, mix together the second lot of ingredients (the dry ones – flour, nuts, cinnamon, baking powder).
3. Gradually stir the wet mixture into the dry until it forms a wet dough. Pour into the greased loaf tin and place in the pre-heated oven for about an hour – until golden brown on top and cooked throughout (check with a skewer if necessary).
4. Allow to cool in the tin. Or do as I did and try to shake it out onto a cooling wire, and be grateful you took pictures of it looking great in the tin, before it broke in half with all the shaking… No, actually, don’t do that. Wait for it to cool down a bit, then ease it out of the pan. Et voila!
Have you made this? What did you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
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I love the Marrow cake, I will never have to wast another marrow or courgette again. Thank you.
Great cake! Thought it would be heavy like an apple cake, but fairly light. Used sultanas instead of nuts, added the zest of a lemon and cooked in a 7″ round tin. Thanks for recipe.
Thanks for the love Pat & Linda – glad you both liked the cake!
A friend of a friend added icing to make it more like a carrot cake – that apparently was great too :)
This recipe is fantastic!!! It’s yummy – our veg market are selling marrows 50p each so we have lots of marrow to get through. Thanks!!!
This recipe is fantastic – we made it with a frosting like carrott cake and it was delicious. Our three year old loved it. Making another one today as my Dad doesn’t believe that a marrow cake could be so lovely. Thank you
Hi Becky & Tracy – glad you both liked it. Hope your dad likes it too, Tracy! :)
Since I’m from the US, it took me awhile to figure out what courgettes (zucchini) and marrow (squash) was. This recipe sounds delicious.
Wow!! My husband and I had this for breakfast and he couldn’t stop raving over it!!! I made it with sultanas instead of the nuts, it was delicious, thanks for the recipe!!! :)
Glad you liked it Milly – sultanas instead of nuts sounds interesting! I’m hoping to make a lot of it this year so I’ll give that a go too :)
Just made this with a marrow given by a friend… mm yummy, thanks very much!! (Love your blog as well).
Thanks for the recipe. My partner and I thought it was a great success much better than a previous courgette cake recipe I found last year. This will definitely get written into my cookbook!
Tastes fantastic, although I think I put a little too much cinnamon in. I left out the nuts for allergy reasons.
I also lined the baking tin with greased, grease proof paper – this saved shaking the cake, and also prevented it getting stuck.
Excellent.
Definitely will try this. I tried Nigella’s courgette cake atthe weekend and found her directions for “2 med-large courgettes” very unhelpful, her idea of a large courgette is clearly very different from mine!
This cake is absolutely delicious I love carrot cake but it is so rich and has lots of oil in it,this cake is just as delicious without the oil it is also very light. Thank you this will be in my recipe book forever.
This is a delicious interesting recipe which I proved to my son who hates to eat marrows. I cooked this cake as a present to my colleagues at work who were very enthusiastic to try out ! ~Thank you
can oil be substituted for the melted butter?
This recipe is amazing, I had a big marrow and I love eating it in rings, griddles and stuffed but really wanted to try a cake too. Looked at other recipes but they were all too sweet, this one is perfect and as I can’t eat nuts I added currants. Lovely texture, really yummy and so easy to make. This is going to become one of my staple cake recipes for summer! Thank you.
And don’t forget to roast the marrow seeds they are fantastic especially with a little oil and salt. Great with a homebrew on a summer afternoon. I have tried collecting the seeds but cant quite get it right. This last lot the fruit was starting to turn yellow so figured it would be good. wasn’t. Keep trying. The steamed marrow flesh is an excellent apple extender as the texture and colour is the same as steamed apples. Great in a pie or wrap.
Great cake! I had no nuts so used candy peel. Next on my list is the marrow jam. We have just too many marrows and courgettes – can’t waste them!
Just made one of these cakes added grated ginger and another with cocoa and melted chocolate on top absolutely yummie
I followed the recipe for the marrow cake . The smell emitting from our oven was heavenly. The cakes were easy to take out of the tin and are now resting on a wire mesh.. I can not wait to try it.
I was given a marrow recently and found your lovely recipe! Decided to give it a go and had quite a lot of marrow so made one with sultanas and another with cocoa and chocolate nibbles. Both really yummy – my husband who doesn’t like marrow was amazed and didn’t say no to a second slice!
Made this cake first as per recipe and really enjoyed it. Second time swapped vanilla and cinnamon for ginger and all spice, and added some chopped stem ginger. Swapped castor sugar for muscavado. Will definitely do again! Thanks
Fantastic cake – a great solution for what to do with the huge marrows in our garden. I doubled the recipe to make 2 loaves (using just 1 egg per loaf). Baked for 1.5 hours. Beautifully moist. Perfect. My family devoured both loaves almost immediately! My husband says lemon curd spread on a slice is heavenly. I’ll be making 2 more loaves today!
What a delightful read that was, I commend you in your style of writing and will be trying out this recipe later today. It’s so refreshing to read a recipe that includes real trial and errors. You made me smile, thank
you.