I saw this Zucchini Cake with Crunchy Lemon Glaze on David Lebovitz’s blog the other day and knew I had to make it. The irony, of course, is this is a good way to make a dent in your bumper crop of zucchini, but we don’t have a vegetable garden, so I bought the zucchini at the farmers market.
The recipe calls for chopped nuts, and apparently you can use pretty much any variety that appeals to you. I had walnuts, so I used those. The nuts are very noticeable, so if you don’t like nuts, you’ll want to come up with a substitute, and if you like something particular, you should use what you like. I definitely taste the walnuts in this cake.
Well, first you toast the nuts. I used the weights, rather than the volumes, for everything, so I weighed the nuts and toasted them on a cookie sheet at 400℉ for about 9 minutes. After they cooled, I ran them through the grinder, and as it turns out, when the nuts are chopped, I had a cup, just as he specifies:
Chopped walnuts in the nut chopper
I got that nut chopper at King Arthur when I was there for the Ciril Hitz class. I don’t use it every day, but I love it, and it was only $10.
The recipe calls for 1 cup of olive oil, and that’s 200 g (oil is lighter than water, of course; 1 cup of water is 240 g). Olive oil is green, so I shouldn’t have been surprised to see that the preliminary batter of eggs, sugar, and olive oil was kind of green:
Green batter
Then you beat in the vanilla and add the dry ingredients, then stir in the zucchini and nuts:
Finished batter
The recipe calls for 300 g of zucchini, which is about 10 oz. I picked out two zucchini at the farmers market and when she weighed them they came to 15 oz, which was obviously enough. I whacked off the ends and ran them through the grater blade on the food processor, and the shredded zucchini came to 313 g, so I used it all; that last 13 g is about a tablespoon.
For a change, I’m using the right pan for the project:
Batter in the pan in the oven
After 45 minutes, a cake tester came out clean:
Done!
That Pam for Baking spray is brilliant; nothing sticks:
The naked cake
I gave it another half hour to cool while I worked on a chapter about melanoma, then I brushed on the glaze:
Glazed cake
My glaze isn’t thick and opaque, and I don’t know why. He says to glaze the cake while the cake is warm, and I did that. Maybe the glaze needs to be cold? Anyway, it tastes good; it reminds me of carrot cake. I think carrots instead of zucchini would work fine.
A slice
Linguina 