Zucchini Cookies with Tangy Topping

Lemon frosting conceals the flecks of zucchini in these tasty cookies.

Lemon frosting conceals the flecks of zucchini in these tasty cookies.


There may be a child or two who will look askance at flecks of green in these cookies, but with any luck, they’ll be distracted by the tangy lemony icing on top.

A couple of months or more ago, I asked for a zucchini cookie recipe. I already have cake recipes, and zucchini bread recipes, but I thought, why not cookies? Our friend Ruth Thurston in Machias pulled a recipe out of her massive collection, and sent it along together with advice.

I’ve been cleaning up the garden, and while the zucchinis plants have mostly succumbed to mildew and old age, I found a useable one or two. By now, I am just a little weary of zucchini as a vegetable, and really welcome a new way of using it. I tried this recipe out the other day, served the cookies to guests with sorbet for dessert, and they just evaporated.

This is a soft, cakey cookie. Ruth and I both left out the called-for walnuts. Ruth wrote, “As I was making these, I thought that lime instead of lemon might be better.” Well, at least as good, for sure. She suggested skipping the frosting and sprinkling the top with mixture of sugar and zest, and that would be delicious, too.

Still, I think that the frosting is what makes these hard to resist. The cookie plain, unfrosted, is not too sweet, a little reminiscent, I thought, of a scone. The dough has lemon zest in it; I put in more zest than the one teaspoon-full called for, but I think it could stand even more.

When I frosted the cookies, I set the cooling rack over a baking sheet, so that when I dribbled on the frosting, the excess dripped onto the sheet. That way, if you want, you can scrape up the frosting drips, and spread them on another cookie or on graham crackers as a snack. (Grin.)

Lemon Zucchini Cookies
2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup, or one and a half sticks, butter
¾ cup sugar
1 egg
1-2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 cup shredded zucchini
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cut parchment paper to cover the cookie sheet. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cream together the butter and sugar, and beat in the egg. Gradually add the dry ingredients and mix until smooth. The dough will be stiff.

This dough is stiff.

This dough is stiff.

Fold in the zucchini and the nuts, if used. Drop by teaspoonfuls on the parchment paper. Bake for fifteen minutes, or until the cookies are nicely browned. Cool, then top with Lemon Frosting.

Makes about two dozen cookies.

Lemon Frosting
1 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar
2 to 3 teaspoons lemon juice
½ to 1 teaspoon lemon zest
Blend. If very drippy, gradually add a little more confectioner’s sugar to achieve spreadable consistency.

Makes enough frosting for two dozen cookies.

Sandy Oliver

About Sandy Oliver

Sandy Oliver Sandy is a freelance food writer with the column Taste Buds appearing weekly since 2006 in the Bangor Daily News, and regular columns in Maine Boats, Homes, and Harbors magazine and The Working Waterfront. Besides freelance food writing, she is a pioneering food historian beginning her work in 1971 at Mystic Seaport Museum, where she developed a fireplace cooking program in an 1830s house. After moving to Maine in 1988, Sandy wrote, Saltwater Foodways: New Englanders and Their Foods at Sea and Ashore in the 19th Century published in 1995. She is the author of The Food of Colonial and Federal America published in fall of 2005, and Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving History and Recipes from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie which she co-authored with Kathleen Curtin. She often speaks to historical organizations and food professional groups around the country, organizes historical dinners, and conducts classes and workshops in food history and in sustainable gardening and cooking. Sandy lives on Islesboro, an island in Penobscot where she gardens, preserves, cooks and teaches sustainable lifeways.