Zucchini Platz — The Cake I Bake When Love Has to Travel Through a Screen

February 2021. Hannah is born. David and Jennifer's fourth child. Another Feldman. Another link in the chain. I cannot be there — the pandemic still restricts hospital visits, and my heart breaks at the restriction, because I have been present for the birth of every grandchild and being absent for this one feels like a violation of the natural order, like a grandmother being denied her constitutional right to hold a newborn and whisper the Shema.

David video-called from the hospital. Jennifer, exhausted and luminous, held Hannah up to the screen. She was seven pounds, dark-haired, perfect in the way that all newborns are perfect and that Jewish grandmothers are biologically programmed to observe with the intensity of scientists cataloguing a new species. I pressed my hand to the screen. My hand on the glass, Hannah's face on the other side. The closest I could get. The distance was eleven inches and it was infinite.

I drove to White Plains the next day with food — challah, chicken soup, rugelach — and left it on the porch. Jennifer sent a photo of herself eating the soup with Hannah in her arms. The photo is now on my refrigerator, next to Ethan's drawings and the medication schedule and the note that tells Marvin what day it is. The refrigerator gallery grows. The evidence of a life being lived in the midst of disease and pandemic and the relentless forward motion of time.

Marvin looked at the photo of Hannah on my phone. I said, "This is Hannah. Our new granddaughter. Number four." He smiled. The smile was real but general — the smile of a man who responds to babies the way he responds to all pleasant things: with warmth that does not require comprehension. He did not ask whose baby it was. He did not connect the baby to David, to our family, to the chain. But he smiled, and the smile was warm, and I will take the warmth without the comprehension, because warmth is love's last language, the one that remains when all the others have been forgotten.

Four grandchildren. Ethan (seven), Sophie (five), Noah (nearly two), and Hannah (newborn). Four reasons the chain doesn't break. Four people I will cook for, teach, feed, and love with the unfiltered devotion of a grandmother who has learned, through disease and pandemic and distance, that love is not diminished by obstacles. Love is the thing that climbs over obstacles. And the challah rises, and the soup is warm, and the baby is here, and the chain holds.

The challah and chicken soup I left on David and Jennifer’s porch that February were the dishes I reach for instinctively — the ones that feel like arms when I cannot use my own. But when I got home that afternoon and Marvin was asleep in his chair and the apartment was quiet in the particular way it gets quiet now, I went to the kitchen and made a Zucchini Platz, which is what my mother made when she didn’t know what else to do, and what her mother made before her. It is not a flashy cake. It does not announce itself. It is the cake of women who knew that feeding people is a form of staying, and that the streusel on top — a little sweet, a little crumbled — is just the right thing to put on something that holds grief and joy at the same time.

Zucchini Platz

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 45 min | Total Time: 1 hr 5 min | Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups firmly packed grated zucchini (about 2 medium zucchini, unpeeled)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
• For the streusel topping:
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Instructions

1. Preheat and prepare. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking pan and set aside.
2. Make the streusel. In a small bowl, combine the flour, sugar, and cinnamon for the topping. Work in the cold butter pieces with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse crumbles. Refrigerate until needed.
3. Mix the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
4. Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, oil, and vanilla until smooth and slightly thickened, about 1 minute.
5. Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until just combined — do not overmix. Fold in the grated zucchini and nuts if using. The batter will be thick.
6. Assemble. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Scatter the chilled streusel topping over the entire surface in an even layer.
7. Bake. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the streusel is golden. The top should feel set, not soft, when lightly pressed.
8. Cool and serve. Let the platz cool in the pan for at least 15 minutes before slicing. It keeps well at room temperature, loosely covered, for up to 3 days — and travels well on a porch, too.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 285 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 12g | Carbs: 41g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 160mg