Zucchini Cake
Posted Jul 06, 2025
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This easy zucchini cake is most & flavorful with tons of fresh zucchini! Topped with the best cream cheese frosting, it’s a delicious dessert and a perfect way to enjoy zucchini!
Is there a better way to eat vegetables than in cake? My kids don’t think so – and this zucchini cake is one of our favorites (along with this chocolate zucchini cake).
It’s soft and moist and absolutely bursting with fresh zucchini. Flavored with just the right amount of vanilla and cinnamon and slathered with cream cheese frosting, it’s going to become your new favorite dessert!
Zucchini Cake: Ingredients & Substitutions
- All-purpose flour. You can substitute up to half of the all purpose flour with white whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour. You can also use all-purpose gluten-free flour to make this zucchini cake gluten-free!
- Salted butter. Unsalted butter and coconut oil are good substitutions for salted butter.
- Canola oil. Olive oil or more butter both work well.
- Sour cream. full-fat sour cream is the best for the richest taste and texture. You can use light sour cream or Greek yogurt.
- Granulated sugar. white granulated sugar or organic cane sugar are the best choices.
- Zucchini. this recipe uses one medium/small zucchini, which comes out to be about 1 cup after being shredded. If you shred and freeze zucchini in the summer to use all year long, let the zucchini thaw in a strainer in the sink until it’s room temperature. Squeeze out a little bit of the excess water and use in the recipe.
How to Make Zucchini Cake
Let’s walk through how to make this zucchini cake recipe together, and don’t forget to watch the video!
Begin by greasing your baking dish. You can use a 9″ round cake pan or a 9×9″ square baking dish.
Then, grate the zucchini. You don’t have to peel it before grating.
Next, mix the dry ingredients together in a small bowl. You can do this now, or if you’d prefer to wait and just add them on top of the wet ingredients later that is an option as well.
Then, whisk the wet ingredients together in a large bowl. Make sure the bowl is big enough to fit all the ingredients in because this is where you will be mixing the cake batter.
Once the wet ingredients are smooth, add the dry ingredients and whisk again until there are no lumps.
Then stir in the zucchini. You can add mix-ins here if you’d like. Some suggestions include mini chocolate chips or cinnamon chips.
Then, evenly spread the batter into the prepared cake pan. Bake until the top is set and lightly browned. You will know it’s done baking when a cake tester (or toothpick) inserted in the center of the zucchini cake comes out clean or with a few crumbs.
Let the cake cool completely before frosting.
Make the Cream Cheese Frosting
While the zucchini cake is cooling, make the cream cheese frosting. It’s easy to make in about 5 minutes, just make sure all the ingredients are room temperature. Follow this recipe: best cream cheese frosting.
Diferent Frosting Suggestions
If you don’t love cream cheese frosting, I suggest trying one of these recipes:
Frost, Chill & Serve
Once the zucchini cake is cool, frost it and chill. You can serve it right away, but it gets even better as it chills overnight so I suggest making this they day before you plan to serve it for the best results.
Serve
Remove the cake from the refrigerator about 30 minutes before serving. I suggest serving this zucchini cake slightly chilled or room temperature.
Store
Store leftover zucchini cake in a single layer in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Freeze
You can freeze the zucchini cake in individual slices or you can freeze the entire cake.
Entire Cake. Make & frost the cake. Then flash-freeze it in the pan until the frosting has hardened. Cover with plastic wrap and foil and freeze for up to 2 months. Thaw in the refrigerator.
Individual Slices. To freeze individual cake slices, flash freeze the slices on a baking sheet until the frosting is hard (about 1 hour). Then, individually wrap each slice in plastic wrap and put them in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 2 months. Thaw in the refrigerator.
Zucchini Cake Recipe FAQS
These are my top 3 frosting recommendations for this recipe:
Cream Cheese Frosting
Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
No! You don’t have to peel the zucchini. In fact, most of the nutrition is in the skin so I prefer to keep it on.
Yes, double the recipe and bake in a 9×13″ baking dish.
Yes, just let the zucchini thaw in a strainer in the sink until it’s room temperature. Squeeze out a little bit of the excess water and use in the recipe.
If you make and love my recipes, it would mean so much to me if you would leave a comment and rating! And don’t forget to follow along on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, TikTok and Youtube – be sure to tag @joyfoodsunshine and use the hashtag #joyfoodsunshine so I can see your creations!
Zucchini Cake
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp fine sea salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ¼ cup salted butter (melted)
- ¼ cup canola oil
- ¼ cup sour cream
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup zucchini (shredded)
Frosting
- cream cheese frosting (half recipe for a 9” cake)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (177 degrees Celsius)
- Grease an 9×9” baking dish, or a 9” round cake plate, set aside (or line it with parchment paper)
- Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, sea salt and cinnamon in a large bowl. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the melted butter, oil, sour cream, eggs, vanilla and sugar until smooth.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk until the batter is smooth.
- Stir the zucchini into the batter until evenly distributed.
- Spread batter into prepared pan.
- Bake 25-28 minutes until the top is lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Let the cake cool on a cooling rack to room temperature, or in the refrigerator.
Frosting
- Spread on cooled cake.
- Chill the cake in the refrigerator overnight.
- Remove the cake from the refrigerator about 1 hour before serving. Serve slightly chilled (not fresh from the fridge for the best texture).
Video
Notes
- All-purpose flour. You can substitute up to half of the all purpose flour with white whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour. Or use all-purpose gluten-free flour to make this zucchini cake gluten-free.
- Salted butter. Unsalted butter and coconut oil are good substitutes.
- Canola oil. Olive oil or more butter both work well.
- Sour cream. You can use light sour cream or Greek yogurt.
- Granulated sugar. white granulated sugar or organic cane sugar are the best choices.
- Zucchini. this recipe uses one medium/small zucchini, which comes out to be about 1 cup after being shredded. If you shred and freeze zucchini in the summer to use all year long, let the zucchini thaw in a strainer in the sink until it’s room temperature. Squeeze out a little bit of the excess water and use in the recipe.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
