Zucchini Brownies with Fudgy Frosting

Here’s a summery, use-up-that-zucchini and just-plain-amazing recipe: 

Zucchini Brownies with Frosting

This is from Brenda Stanley’s fun (and useful) book, The Zucchini Houdini

Brenda is an awesome local lady and her book is great, with 100+ zucchini recipes – main dishes, side dishes, soups, breads, cookies, and yes, even zucchini brownies. Her Zucchini “Apple” Crisp (which uses only peeled, sliced zucchini and no apples) is fast, easy and yummy comfort food. Try it!

I’m dedicating this blog post and dessert to my sweet daughter, Ella, who helped make these. She is a great little chef (age 10) and you’ll probably see her on Food Network someday, unless she goes to Yale to study neurosurgery (which is one of her current plans).

Brownie Ingredients:

2 cups grated zucchini

1.5 cups sugar

3/4 cup oil

2 tsp. vanilla

2 cups flour

1/3 cup cocoa

1.5 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1/2 cup nuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Grate the zucchini. A note on preparing zucchini: My sister passed on some sage cooking wisdom when preparing her zucchini lasagna with a mandoline slicer (and this can transfer to graters, too): When pitting fingers against mandolines, the mandoline always wins! Try not to grate any of your flesh into the brownies please. 

   

   Note this is messy –
   I had zucchini bits everywhere.
   Tidier to use the food processor
   but I didn’t feel like cleaning it.

   

   Note the nifty KitchenAid grater
   with the measuring/storage dish underneath
    – LOVE IT!

   

   A large zucchini, such as this one, yields approx. 2 cups grated
3. Combine zucchini, sugar, oil and vanilla. (Yup, no eggs in this one. It would be a good vegan recipe if you leave off the frosting.)
4. Mix the dry ingredients and add to the moist ingredients. 
5. Pour into greased 9x13 pan and bake 35-40 minutes. Cool. 

Easy, right? And, if you have zucchini, it’s likely you have the rest of the ingredients on hand, too.

Frosting Ingredients

1/4 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup miniature marshmallows

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional) 

I thought this looked a bit like a fudge recipe, and guess what?!? It tastes a lot like a layer of fudge over your brownies! Incredible. My kids were already plotting the types of cakes on which to place this frosting!

1.  Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add sugar and milk, bring to a boil. Stir frequently and cook for 1 minute.
2. Remove from heat. Add chocolate chips and marshmallows. Stir until melted. Add vanilla. Spread over brownies. Sprinkle with nuts, if desired. 

Isn't the swirly chocolate-marshmallow pretty?

Then, try to exercise any shred of self-restraint not to eat these immediately. We lasted about 15 minutes. Amazing warm, and the leftovers are amazing cold. (I think you could leave these out, but refrigeration seems more prudent to me, especially as moist as they are.)

We initially cut this into 12 generous pieces, but you’ll probably have chocolate overload. And, I put walnuts both in the brownies and frosting. Delicious! These brownies turn out rather cake-like, so if you like the crunchy edge-piece brownies, don’t expect the same result here. I cook mine a bit on the longer end – about 40 minutes.

If there are any typos or mistakes, please let me know (and don’t blame Brenda Stanley). I paraphrased her directions a bit. Now, go EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!

… and one last guilty secret – I actually let my family have (zucchini) brownie sundaes last night for dinner. I’m waiting to be nominated as Mother of the Year…

Mangia! (Eat!) . . . Cindy Lou Who