Zucchini Brownies

The tomatoes are coming in and I have entered the beautiful tyranny of the summer harvest where the garden is producing faster than I can process it and every day involves decisions about what to do with the abundance. This is a complaint I am willing to have. I will take this problem every year over any other problem. The tomatoes this summer are excellent — the dry spell in early July concentrated the sugars and the subsequent rain came exactly when the fruit needed it, which I cannot claim credit for but am happy to receive.

I've been canning sauce in batches every three days. The kitchen at nine in the morning smells like summer concentrated into a pot — that particular smell of tomatoes reducing, olive oil, a basil bundle simmering through. I posted one of the canning sessions to the channel and it got more comments than almost anything else I've posted this year, which tells me something about what people are looking for. Not the performance of cooking. The actual practice of it. The humble, repetitive work of putting up food because it's August and the garden is generous and winter is coming.

Gary has been working on what he describes as his "definitive sourdough formula" for three weeks and is approaching it with the same methodical rigor he brings to his academic work. He bakes on Tuesdays and Saturdays. He has a proofing basket. He has a bread score scoring tool that arrived in a small package from an online retailer and that he examined with an expression of quiet excitement that I found completely endearing. The bread is genuinely excellent and getting better. He's going to publish his formula somewhere, he says. I say: of course you are.

The fifth book cover image was proposed by the publisher this week — a photograph of summer produce arranged on a wooden table, warm light, simple. I liked it immediately. The book is becoming real in the way that a book becomes real: from the inside out first and then suddenly from the outside in, when it has a cover and a design and starts to look like an object that will exist in the world. That transition is still astonishing to me after five books. It never gets ordinary.

Between the tomato sauce batches and the canning jars and the general beautiful chaos of August, there is always zucchini — the garden’s most reliably generous and slightly overwhelming gift. The same spirit that has me reducing tomatoes at nine in the morning sent me to these brownies on an afternoon when the counter was full and I wanted to make something that felt like a reward for all the productive work of the season. Gary got three of them and said nothing, which is the highest compliment he gives to baked goods that are not his own sourdough.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 24

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 cups shredded zucchini (about 2 medium; do not wring dry)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking pan and set aside.
Mix dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt until evenly combined.
Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat softened butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 2–3 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Stir in vanilla.
Combine. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir until just incorporated — the batter will be thick. Fold in the shredded zucchini and 3/4 cup of the chocolate chips. The moisture from the zucchini will loosen the batter as you mix.
Bake. Spread batter evenly into the prepared pan. Scatter remaining 1/4 cup chocolate chips over the top. Bake 28–32 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs (not wet batter).
Cool and cut. Let brownies cool completely in the pan before cutting into 24 squares. They firm up as they cool and are better the next day, if you can wait.

Nutrition (per serving)

Zucchini Brownies — Because the Garden Gives and the Kitchen Has to Keep Up