Scarpaccia – Italian zucchini cake (from Tuscany)

Scarpaccia - Italian zucchini cake (from Tuscany)

CLICCARE QUI PER LA RICETTA IN ITALIANO

Scarpaccia is a cake from my city, Viareggio.
I used to eat it since I was a child, so it’s normal for me, even if the combination of a cake and zucchini could sound quite weird.
Can you imagine my surprise when I learned that a famous American cake, the zucchini bread, was similar to it?
Of course the cake is different, but you can’t ignore some similarities.
This is a family recipe, my granma used to do the zucchini cake, then taught it to my mother.

Scarpaccia - Italian zucchini cake (from Tuscany)
Scarpaccia – Italian zucchini cake (from Tuscany)
Scarpaccia - Italian zucchini cake (from Tuscany)
Scarpaccia – Italian zucchini cake (from Tuscany)
Scarpaccia - Italian zucchini cake (from Tuscany)
Scarpaccia – Italian zucchini cake (from Tuscany)
Scarpaccia - Italian zucchini cake (from Tuscany)
Scarpaccia – Italian zucchini cake (from Tuscany)

We often do the zucchini cake at the hotel where my mom and I work. It’s always funny to see people’s faces and reactions in front of this weird new cake (because you know, it’s famous only in my city!)
They divide into two categories:
THE BRAVE: those who are really courageous to dare and taste everything.
THE SCARED: those who look at this cake like an alien food. they take a bit with the fork, look at it really close, smell it, analyze it, touch it and then gather all their bravery and swallow it with their eyes closed. Like they are going to die, in few seconds.
And you know what?
They like it!
With a big surprise they open their eyes and 1: they are not dead, 2: they think it’s good!!!
because of course it’s good, really gooood!!!
Zucchini melts inside the sponge and they do what fruit does inside cake, bring moisture. So the cake is wet, soft, spongy and palatable.
It’s a really easy and fast recipe. And also a light one (only 50 grams of butter).
It looks like a flat cake, we use to say “schiacciata”, because it contains very few baking powder. A lot of cakes from my region, Tuscany, don’t have it (or a very little quantity) in their doughs, it’s one of their main features.
Scarpaccia is usually prepared into a big baking tray, but I prefered to do some cute and colourful single-servings.

Ingredients for Scarpaccia – Italian zucchini cake (from Tuscany)

  •  2 eggs
  • 220 g sugar
  • 50 g butter
  • 1/2 glass of milk
  • 150 plain flour
  • 8 g of baking powder
  • vanilla
  • 1 coffee spoon of cognac
  • 500 g zucchini

How-to:

Clean zucchini and cut the two ends. Then cut each zucchini lengthwise so you get 4 slices. Cut each slice into thin layers (about 2 millimeters thick) so you get little triangles. This is the most time-consuming and boring part of the cake.
Melt the butter using the microwave, then add milk to cool it down.
In a bowl mix eggs with sugar, don’t beat too much, they must remain quite liquid.
Add the mixture of butter and milk, still beating, and then cognac.
In another bowl sift flour with baking powder and vanilla. Add them to the dough, just keep in mind it will remain quite liquid.
Put also zucchini, blending by hand, and let it rest for 5 minutes, so zucchini will fall on the bottom of the bowl.
Grease and cover in flour one baking tray (28 cm) or 12 single-servings (10 cm).
Place inside a preheated oven (180° C) for about 40/50 minutes for the cake, and 20 minutes for the single-servings.
The surface should be golden when well baked.

5 Replies to “Scarpaccia – Italian zucchini cake (from Tuscany)”

  1. L’idea delle mono porzioni mi ispira sempre di +..queste scapaccine sono la fine del mondo 😀

  2. When I originally commented I clicked the “Notify me when new comments are added” checkbox
    and now each time a comment is added I get several e-mails with
    the same comment. Is there any way you can remove me
    from that service? Many thanks!

    1. undolcealgiorno dice:

      on which post did you clicked “notify me”? because there are no other comments on the post “scarpaccia”
      maybe on another one?
      anyway you should open your email address, click on the email you get from this blog and you should find a link where is written “cancel notifications/registration” or something like that!
      or at least it works like that for my email and all the blogs i follow and from which i get notifications.

  3. Good article, thanks

    1. undolcealgiorno dice:

      glad you liked it! XD
      and sorry for my english 😛

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