Anne Byrn: Between the Layers

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A Zucchini Birthday Cake & Flowers, too - No. 138

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A Zucchini Birthday Cake & Flowers, too - No. 138

Happy Birthday to August people! ๐ŸŽ‰ Recipes for zucchini cake and fried zucchini blossoms.

Anne Byrn
Aug 4, 2022
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A Zucchini Birthday Cake & Flowers, too - No. 138

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My favorite birthday cake: Zucchini Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting and a lot of toasted pecans packed on the sides.

AUGUST AND ZUCCHINI ARE AT OPPOSITE ENDS of the alphabet, but truly, they have much in common.

Zucchini thrives in Augustโ€™s insufferable heat, and August birthdays are all the better with zucchini cake.

I came to this realization a half dozen years ago when my younger daughter was home working summers in Nashville. Finally, I selfishly had someone who wanted to cook all the mutant zucchini taking over my garden and someone to ask those magical words to the cake doctor, โ€˜โ€™Mom, what kind of birthday cake do you want this year?โ€™โ€™

Oh, did I tell you I have an August birthday?

And that itโ€™s today?

Which is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day for whatever reason that may be. Whatโ€™s wrong with those day-naming people? This is zucchini season!

This morningโ€™s harvest. One wore a flower cap!

Zucchini is such an interesting vegetable. We fry it, saute it, shred it into breads and cakes, spiralize it into pasta, pickle it, am I missing anything? But itโ€™s like so many other vegetables in that itโ€™s sweeter and more tender freshly picked from your own garden.

And in the garden, it is the beast! I would say itโ€™s taking growth hormones if I didnโ€™t know better. It waits there uninterested all summer while the tomatoes are ripening and basil is cranking out and then like a teenager whoโ€™s neglected summer reading, it gets seriously busy. Laser focused. As if fear set in and nothing else mattered but more zucchini for me to cook.

Iโ€™ve been intrigued by how warm weather cultures make good use of zucchini and how Olia Hercules added it to her Armenian sheet pan roast of vegetables along with tomatoes and feta. And certainly the Italians know a thing or two about zucchini.

We rented a house in Tuscany for a week one summer, and a perk of the house was this massive vegetable garden with tomatoes on the vine. We asked a local cook to teach us how to make homemade pasta, and she cooked dinner for us one night, too. Her name was Elena Nasoni. She had brought large zucchini squash blossoms with her and found a few more in our houseโ€™s garden. And just to sit in the breeze outdoors and smell the aroma of potatoes sauteing with garlic and sage inside, and these squash blossoms frying in oil, and to have it cooked for you, well, it was one of the most glorious experiences of my life.

I came home with her tiramisu recipe, which I treasure. But the squash blossoms we had to recreate on our own. I believe they had a hint of lemon zest. I do recall we gobbled them up and washed them down with Campari as well as Vermentino.

Our zucchini blossoms stuffed with ricotta and seasonings before they fry.

Those memories flooded back today as I picked more zucchini. One of the squash had its blossom still attached. I think Iโ€™ll fry some for my birthday. Grab some ricotta and a lemon while Iโ€™m at the store. Iโ€™ve got a load of fresh mint, and surely thereโ€™s a chilled Italian white downstairs.

On any other day, I can grate zucchini onto my salad or fry slices like Marcella Hazan did in a batter of 2/3 cup all-purpose flour stirred into 1 cup of water. My children loved that.

But for birthdays, I want cake and flowers.

Too busy watching my sister trying to blow out my first candle than pay attention to my first birthday cake.

Next Tuesday in Between the Layers

The Italian food love continues as Domenica Marchetti will teach us how to make crostata. Tis the season!

So find an apron, and happy baking zucchini cake (and frying those blossoms)! I do appreciate that youโ€™ve joined me on this journey. And Iโ€™d love to know your favorite birthday cake, too.

- xo, Anne

Zucchini Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting.

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