The Only Cake Recipe You'll Need, Ever

I promise promise promise

I’ve been dying to get this one out to you all! I’m going to make it short and sweet, because the baby is napping, and we all know that’s very temporary and I’ve probably just jinxed myself.

I made this Zucchini Spice Cake for Ollie’s first birthday and DO NOT ASK ME HOW…but it became this insane sensation in Miami. I kid you not, I sold it for $400 a cake. It was a terrible business plan, even if I sold the cake for $1,000...bakeries are not businesses, they are money pits! But I had fun and tested all of my relationship boundaries with Matt and the housekeeper with pans piled high in the kitchen sink and cakes piled in my freezer and fridge. It was awesome and horrible and makes an amazing story. My good friend Kelly Schumacher jumped in and we kept making these cakes together. The demand was high, and I remember the day I quit….

I had a special order for a cake…a $500 cake, this same recipe I’m giving you, just with gold flakes and a firecracker candle on top because, Miami….and I delivered it to a yacht. I called Matt and said, I don’t want to be making cakes for these people on a yacht! I want to be eating this cake on a yacht! If you know me, this is the least shocking statement.

I once held a “job" as a barista, and on day one they made me buy my own apron and told me I’d work for free for two weeks while I trained. (My dress money had to wait!) Then they asked me to clean the back room (bleach, buckets, brooms…) and take out the trash. My Mom tells the end of this story the best. “Emily called me and said, ‘Mom, they made me clean the back room and take out the trash. I’m not even making coffee. (The best part is I did not even know how to make coffee.) I’m not doing this. Can we go to NYC?’”

And my poor, incredible mother felt so bad for me, she booked me a flight out of North Carolina and we went to NYC together that weekend. Let me dig up that photo of us at Tavern on the Green (when it was “official'“) for you.

Well, shoot. I’ll get you the photo after my Mom wraps all the gifts…twenty year old Emily that walked out of her unpaid barista “job” is a version of myself I want to forget and remember. She knows a lot and has a lot to learn. But she was me and I love her chutzpah and I will share…soon!

This cake recipe I’m giving you is the only cake recipe you need. I’ll tell you why. You can get amazing chocolate and vanilla cake from the grocery store or a box, even! You can find incredible cakes for way less time and money than you can make them at home. But you cannot, will not, find this Zucchini Spice Cake, anywhere.

And for my gluten free friends, I have included this cake recipe with a gluten free version as well!

When Ollie was first diagnosed with crazy food allergies, I made this cake is dairy-free, nut-free, and egg-free, so he could eat it. But since, I have replaced the egg replacer in the recipe with standard well-beaten eggs and it’s wonderful, if not fluffier. Do not for a minute be fooled that zucchini in the recipe makes the cake healthy. It makes it moist! And if your child is anti-zucchini (like mine, believe it or not) shred the zucchini so small they can’t see it when it all the components bake together.

And the icing on the cake, literally (had to) is the SIMPLE Brown Butter Frosting. I swear to you, I used to keep bags of this frozen just for a taste whenever I wanted something sweet. Words cannot describe. So sweet it makes your teeth ache in a GREAT way. The texture is PERFECT. When you add it onto the cake layers, it locks in the moisture of the cake, and it’s like eating a symphony.

The art of cakery is dying. It’s almost dead in my house. In the past seven months, we have swapped all of my favorite homemade, intricate recipes for function, convenience, and easy-assembling in this stage of life. There are few things I plan for, weeks in advance. This cake is one. My holiday ginger blackstrap molasses cookie is another. (Let me know if you want this recipe!)

A cake like this Zucchini Spice Cake is beyond special enough to be your holiday centrepiece. It’s very forgiving and unforgettable. I have included photos of many ways I’ve made it. You can get fancy and try to do this naked frosting style or go more organic like I did with Ollie’s first birthday cake (pic below), adding frosting to the cake like oil on canvas. There’s no wrong way to make this cake. And when it’s finished, adorn it with seasonal fruits and herbs. I love rosemary, blackberries, and figs. I am quite figgy, so much so, that I even like to add a thin layer of fig jam between each cake layer.

So my personal twist on this cake goes: cake layer, fig jam, brown butter frosting, cake layer, fig jam, frosting, cake, jam, frosting. Then at the very end I frost the entire cake. Once or twice.