Grandma's Zucchini Block

My grandmother's recipe for a gently spicy sheet cake, made with freshly grated zucchini.

Elise Bauer

Rummaging through my mother's old recipe file recently, I stumbled upon a photocopy of a handwritten recipe for zucchini cake. The recipe is in my grandmother'due south hand, my dad'south mom.

She was the baker in the family (a title now passed on to my begetter). She moved from St. Paul to live with us in Los Angeles when I was four.

Mom, being rather busy with all the kids (6 kids in 8 years!) and working as a head start instructor, didn't accept much fourth dimension for crafts or baking.

Elise Bauer

It was grandma who taught me to sew, to knit and crochet, and to bake. She fabricated cherry pies, affections food cakes, apricot jam, and the best oatmeal raisin cookies. Nosotros fought for the rights to lick the concoction basin of any cake she happened to be making.

When we moved to Sacramento, she would send my mother recipe clippings and notes. I think that's how we must take ended up with this recipe for zucchini block.

It's a lot similar zucchini breadstuff, moist and somewhat crumbly, only in sheet cake form, with more egg and sugar, and with a cream cheese frosting. Groovy for summer potlucks!

Elise Bauer

The frosting amount assumes that you are going to continue the cake in the pan and just frost the top. If you program on removing the block from the pan and frosting the sides, you lot'll desire to up the frosting amounts.

Cake:

  • two cups all-purpose flour

  • two teaspoons cinnamon (can sub i teaspoon with other spices such equally allspice and nutmeg, go easy on the cloves though)

  • two teaspoons blistering soda

  • 1 teaspoon table salt

  • 1/four teaspoon baking powder

  • three large eggs

  • 2 cups sugar

  • 1 cup vegetable oil

  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  • 1 teaspoon lemon zest, optional

  • 3 to 4 medium zucchini, grated, and with the moisture pressed out through a sieve to equal ii cups

  • 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (my grandmother recommends black walnuts)

  • one/2 cup golden raisins, optional

Frosting:

  • 3 ounces cream cheese, softened to room temperature (Philadelphia cream cheese recommended)

  • one/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

  • 1 ane/2 to two cups powdered saccharide

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 9x12 or 9x13 baking pan (I used a pyrex pan).

  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, blistering soda, salt, and baking powder. Prepare aside.

  3. In a mixer, beat the iii eggs on high speed until frothy. Lower the speed and beat in the sugar, vegetable oil, vanilla, and lemon zest (if using). Stir in the flour mixture, a third at a fourth dimension. Stir in the zucchini and chopped nuts and/or raisins.

  4. Pour mixture into a 9x12 or 9x13 blistering pan. Broil at 350°F for xl to 45 minutes. (My grandmother's notes say you can too broil in an angel nutrient pan for 1 hour.) Remove from oven and let cool completely before frosting. (While the cake is cooling, let the frosting'south cream cheese and butter sit at room temperature to soften.)

  5. To make the frosting, beat together the cream cheese and butter. Add together the powdered sugar and shell until smooth.

    Frost the cake and serve. Store covered with aluminum foil.

Links:

Zucchini cake with crunchy lemon glaze from David Lebovitz

Spiced zucchini cake from My Blistering Addiction

Elise Bauer

It'due south so eerie to look at my grandmother's notes. She mentions that "black walnuts are expert". Black walnuts are pretty hard to detect, but at that place was a black walnut tree on our block that she and I would pass on the way to the grocery shop. If there were any nuts on the basis, she would gather them and we would fissure them open with a hammer when we got domicile.

Her hand got shakier as she got older. By her 90s she had the symptoms of Parkinson's. There's a more recent note to my sister advising her to drain the zucchini, where her handwriting is noticeably more than wobbly.

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
355 Calories
20g Fat
43g Carbs
4g Protein
Show Full Nutrition Label Hide Total Nutrition Characterization

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Nutrition Facts
Servings: 20
Amount per serving
Calories 355
% Daily Value*
Full Fat 20g 25%
Saturated Fatty 4g 19%
Cholesterol 38mg 13%
Sodium 264mg 11%
Total Carbohydrate 43g 16%
Dietary Fiber 1g 5%
Full Sugars 32g
Protein 4g
Vitamin C 5mg 26%
Calcium 30mg 2%
Fe 1mg 6%
Potassium 164mg iii%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an approximate. In cases where multiple ingredient alternatives are given, the first listed is calculated for nutrition. Garnishes and optional ingredients are not included.