Betty Crocker, you've met your match.

Yesterday I was Betty Crocker and June Cleaver combined. It was amazing(ly frightening). We're going away tomorrow to visit some friends at their lake house and were asked to bring an appetizer or dessert to share. Well, since I spend my summers at home pretending to be a stay-at-home wifey, I decided I could do both an appetizer and dessert because I know other people have to work every day. Well, I might have gotten carried away... We had so much zucchini, I knew I wanted to make my Nana's Chocolate Zucchini Cake and I had a great appetizer recipe from my mother-in-law. Then, I thought about breakfast, and decided to make some muffins too. So, yesterday, I made:
Chocolate Zucchini Cake
Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes
Banana Nut Muffins
Blueberry Muffins
Cinnamon Crumble Muffins
plus... a delicious comfort food dinner.

I used all our new toys from the wedding and watched 6 hours of HGTV. tee hee. I shredded zucchini in our Cuisinart (so awesome), mixed cake in our KitchenAid mixer, washed dishes in our rolling dishwasher, and baked everything in our 1972 oven. It was a good day. But the recipe I want to share right now is my Nana's Zucchini Cake. Nana is my great-grandmother and what I remember of her is a mixture of real memories and stories. My Nana loved my sister and I, probably because we were awesome, but more practically because we were the first great-grandchildren. But anyways, Nana was a great cook and loved my mama because she tried everything Nana put in front of her. My mom even ate raisins, which she HATES.

Anyways, Chocolate Zucchini Cake is a great way to get kids to eat zucchini AND it makes the moistest   cake ever. This recipe makes one 9x13 cake or about 36-40 cupcakes. Yesterday, I made three batches. oy. I hope our friends are hungry this weekend... hubby even took a bunch to work today, haha.

Ok, I'm copying the entire recipe just as Nana wrote it, but I'll do some explaining and substitutes for people like me who had no clue what Oleo was.

325 degree oven for 45 minutes (about 30 minutes for the cupcakes)
Ingredients:
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup oleo
1/2 cup oil
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
4 tbs cocoa
1/2 cup chocolate chips
3 zucchinis, 6 in. long, grated

Directions:
Cream sugar, oleo, eggs, oil, mix well, measure dry ingredients, add to creamed ingredients, add zucchini, mix well, grease 9x13 pan, add batter and pour chips on top & bake.

So... as you can tell, Nana liked to leave some stuff out. First, I'll tackle the ingredients. Oleo, come to find out, is a shortening like lard. I just used butter and it worked out just fine. 1/2 cup of butter is a full stick, let it warm up on the counter for a bit before using it to let it cream easier. Buttermilk - I don't know about you, but I don't have buttermilk in my fridge and, as luck would have it, my Food Network Magazine came in the mail and Paula Dean gave us a substitute for buttermilk! For 1 cup of buttermilk (I did this and just poured half of it in for each batch), pour in a tbsp of white vinegar (or lemon juice) then fill up to the 1 cup line with milk. It's awesome - works perfectly. Oh, and the cocoa. I didn't have any cocoa in my pantry but I did have baking squares. One baking square equals 3 tbsp of cocoa. So make do. Be sure to melt it a bit though, before adding it to the batter. And be careful when you melt it so as not to burn the chocolate...

But, this is so delicious. It's one of my faves and, thanks to my Grandma, I now have all of my Nana's recipes in one fantastic book. So look for more of Nana's recipes later, but enjoy this one for now! I'll let you know how our friends enjoy my baking efforts hahaha
Bon Appetit!!