There's a sweet story in the introduction toThe Harvest Bakerthat explains how cookbook author and baking expert Ken Haedrich became obsessed with recipes like chocolate zucchini cake. It was the early 1980s and Haedrich was the cook at a group home for boys in New Hampshire. There was a groundskeeper on site who nursed a thriving vegetable garden, and he'd hand over bundles of tomatoes, onions, kale, and zucchini to Haedrich almost faster than he could use them.
That was sort of identity-forming for Haedrich. "I’m just a vegetable guy," he says now. "I’m just a produce guy."
Haedrich left that job in New Hampshire a long time ago, butthe zucchini keeps coming. "This is the time of year when people start dropping zucchinis off on your doorstep," he told me over the phone a few days ago. "They think they're doing you a big favor, but you have to figure out what you’re doing to do with these things."
Haedrich's solution is, of course, to bake with them: inThe Harvest Bakerhe's included recipes for a savory ratatouille cobbler, a zucchini taco pie, and oatmealzucchini bread.
But when I was faced with my own zucchini glut last week, I flipped past all of those and landed on hisChocolate Zucchini Cake with Chocolate Glaze.
It was the headnote that lured me. Actually, let's be honest: it was the fact that it's a chocolate cake that lured me. But the headnote helped. In it, Haedrich promises that this will be "maybe the moistest chocolate cake you've ever had."
I like a recipe that makes a bold statement, so on a very hot summer night I turned on my oven and baked the cake for myself.
What came out of my oven was a rustic, square cake that was both sweet and tangy (thank you,sour cream) and, yes, very, verymoist. The next day, it was even more so.
That, Haedrich told me, is all thanks to the zucchini. "It adds a tremendous amount of moisture and staying power to the cake," he said. "What happens is that the zucchini just slowly releases moisture into the cake. It sits around for three or four days, and it gets even more moist. I love that."
This is the power of using vegetables in cake. And chocolate zucchini cakes are particularly good, because the chocolate hides any vegetable flavor—the zucchini is there for texture, not taste (and certainly not for health, though go ahead and fool yourself if you want to).
Of course, zucchini season is only so long, so my strong suggestion is to make this cake now. (Right now. Leave the office. Go!) Make it until zucchini season is over, and then move on to a different chocolate cake. Haedrich has one that's a good contender. It's full of beets.
