Category: Desserts

Marlene’s Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Like many great recipes, this one has a history. To learn who Marlene was and how Denise got the recipe, just skip to the NOTES. If you also want to learn how to make a delicious chocolate cake, just keep reading.

It all started a few weeks ago when I refused to buy a large zucchini at the Farmers Market in New Richmond.  Denise, the daughter of some friends who sell regularly at the market Saturday mornings, was filling in for her father who was recovering from surgery. She tried to talk me into buying one of the large green squashes displayed on the table.

“Our son and daughter-in-law gave us a couple of nice small zucchini from their CSA box,” I explained.

“But this is a nice big one picked this morning,” she replied.

“What would I do with it?” I asked.

“Make zucchini cake,” she answered.

“No thanks,” I said, “I really don’t like vegetable cakes. Except carrot cake, of course,” I explained.

“You could make zucchini bread,” she offered hopefully.

“I’ve done that. Dale and Pegi gave me Grandma Emma’s Zucchini Bread recipe, and it’s good, but I made one this summer already. Thanks anyway,” I said as I tried to make room for other customers.

Denise was persistent. “Why don’t you like zucchini cake or bread?” she asked.

I was honest. “I really don’t appreciate those green bits in them.”

“Ah ha, my chocolate zucchini cake doesn’t have any green bits,” she crowed. “I’ll make you one to prove it. When I serve it, people are amazed that what makes it so moist and tender is zucchini.”

She was as good as her word. She gave me a cake. It was delicious, and I couldn’t find any green bits in it. You won’t either.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups puréed zucchini
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour plus a little to flour the pan
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder plus a little to flour the pan
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

PROCEDURE:

Start by washing a large zucchini, removing the stem and flower ends and chopping it into a half-inch dice. Put the pieces into a food processor or blender and process until you have a smooth green purée, something that you could feed to a grandchild starting on solid foods. Put two generous cups of the purée into a large mixing bowl.

Preheat the oven to 350º. Grease and flour a nine by thirteen-inch pan with a teaspoon of flour blended with a quarter teaspoon of cocoa.

Add the butter, oil, buttermilk, eggs and vanilla to the purée and blend with an electric mixer.

Stir the dry ingredients together in a bowl or sifter and combine them with the liquids by thirds, beating well between additions. Continue beating with the mixer until you have a smooth batter. Fold in the chocolate chips and pour the batter into the baking pan.

Bake for forty-five minutes or a little longer. Test for doneness with a toothpick inserted near the center. If the toothpick has only melted chocolate on it, the cake is done. If it comes out with batter stuck to it, bake the cake for another two or three minutes.

Cool the cake completely and serve it plain or with a dollop of whipped cream.

NOTES: Here is what Denise says about this cake. 
 
“I like the recipe as it is really easy as you don’t have to worry about dry ingredients and then blending with the wet ingredients, etc.  I just put it all in a bowl and mix with a mixer and then add the choc chips.  I have tried many substitutions and they all have come out really well.  Many times I will substitute one of the cups of flour with whole wheat flour.  I also will substitute either the oil or butter with applesauce and it turns out great each time.
 
“I purée the zucchini and freeze it in two cup increments so that I can make the cake all throughout the year.  Great way to use up the zucchini when it is coming in so quick and it doesn’t go to waste.  I also don’t have to pay $6 for zucchini like I did once in the winter. 
 
“I got the recipe from my sister and she got it from Marlene Johnson, her mother-in-law from Amery.  Here is what Marlene said about it.
 
” ‘I got the recipe from one of my daycare people along with a few other zucchini recipes. I also have a copy from a newspaper.  I didn’t think I would like it with cinnamon but it makes it special–important ingredient.  I like having one of these cakes in my freezer ready for company. Right now I have two of them.’”

Like Roaring River Chess Pie

Nearly fifty years ago I tasted my first piece of Chess Pie.  It was really special.  Jerri and I were on our honeymoon for a week at Roaring River State Park in southwest Missouri.   The Ozark mountains offer some beautiful vistas, and the cold clear water of the Roaring River reminds me of the streams where I first learned to fish for trout.  It was a beautiful place for our first days together.

Like many of the parks throughout the United States, Roaring River State Park was built by young men enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps.  The CCC was the most popular of the New Deal programs.  In addition to their work at state and national parks, CCC men planted the bare lands of northern Wisconsin and Minnesota with pines that grew into the forests we enjoy today and constructed scenic highways like the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia.

The log cabin we rented was built by men who were probably younger that I was, but they were led by experienced foremen, so it was snug and private, perfect for the two of us.  There was a restaurant in a larger log building where we ate most of our meals.  It was rustic and spotless and staffed by cheerful waitresses.  Obviously there were some talented people in the kitchen.  Believe me, I would remember any bad meals.

We did take a couple of day trips to nearby places.  The park is about fifty miles from Branson, Missouri and Table Rock Lake where friends of Jerri’s parents, Paul and Shirley, had a campsite where they spent much of the summer.  They took us water skiing on the lake and we had lunch in Branson, at that time a small town catering to tourists that reminded me of Hayward, where I grew up.

Nine years later we spent a night at Roaring River State Park with our children.  The restaurant was gone from the log building which now housed a gift shop filled with souvenirs.  The only room we could get was in a new brick building which also housed the restaurant.  When I tried to order Chess Pie, the young waitress did not know what it was.

That summer I had been reading William Butler Yeats in preparation for teaching a Sophomore Literature Survey course.  The transformation of the park made me think of the opening lines from “September 1913”:

“What need you, being come to sense, 

But fumble in a greasy till 

And add the halfpence to the pence 

And prayer to shivering prayer, until 

You have dried the marrow from the bone…. “

We did not visit Branson on our way back to Kentucky.  My mother enjoyed her visit there many years later and my oldest sister thinks that Branson is wonderful.  There are now fifty theaters and lots of neon signs, so visitors are not distracted by trees and night skies.

Since that magic week in August of 1967, I have been sampling Chess Pie from time to time.  It is not as popular as it once was, but I occasionally find it in local restaurants from southern Illinois to the Gulf Coast.  Most versions have been good and all have been edible, but none match my memory of Roaring River Chess Pie.  I am still looking for a recipe that will produce the same delightful flavor I remember.

This one comes very close.  Maybe the only thing missing is a dash of honeymoon happiness.

INGREDIENTS:

9 “ pie shell

1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1 T cornmeal

5 large eggs

1/3 cup whipping cream

1/2 cup butter

1 T cider vinegar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:

Line a nine-inch pie plate with a crust.  You can buy crusts in your local market, but once you have made a few, you will find that homemade pie crusts are inexpensive and easy to make.

Bring the eggs to room temperature or put them in warm water for a few minutes.

 Preheat the oven to 400º and melt the butter. 

Blend the granulated sugar, brown sugar and cornmeal in a mixing bowl.  Beat in the eggs one a time.  Add the whipping cream, butter, vinegar and vanilla extract.   Beat everything into a smooth batter.

Pour the filling into the pie shell and bake on the center rack for ten minutes.  Reduce the heat to 325º and bake for about forty-five minutes more.  The pie will be done when a table knife inserted near the center of the pie comes out clean.  If necessary, bake another three minutes and test again.

Note: The photo is courtesy of my brother-in-law Patrick and my sister Patsy, who baked the pie.