Zucchini Pancakes with Lemon Mascarpone Cream

A spiced zucchini pancake recipe gets the royal treatment with an indulgent lemon mascarpone.

Every summer, every chef and gardener I know is scrambling around for various ways to use up all the zucchini in their garden. Because if you’ve ever grown zucchini, you know that there comes a point where you have more than you think could ever use in a lifetime. It’s fine at first, but eventually, even things like fried zucchini or zucchini bread become boring. We joined a CSA for a few years and every July, we’d start getting loads and loads of zucchini. It seemed almost comical, but apparently, that’s a thing. Strangely, when we had a garden for a (very!) short time, we planted zucchini but got zero. So it was always hard for me to imagine having more than I can handle. But here we are, making the perfect zucchini pancake recipe

This recipe was kind of inspired by that, but also by some zucchini pancakes I had at a brunch on vacation recently. Delicately spiced, they were chock full of walnuts, and tender like a pancake. In addition, they had this amazing lemon-flavored cream on top.

I have no idea what the cream they used was made of, but I made my own out of mascarpone and it came out perfect. You don’t see a lot of things with mascarpone (besides tiramisu – my fave!) but it’s kind of like fancy Italian cream cheese. I don’t know why we as a society don’t embrace it more. Hmm. Maybe I’ll start a movement. Good idea.

These are great for a late summer brunch if you have a bunch of zucchini to get rid of, but they’re also delicious if you just have to buy a couple at the store because you don’t have the skills for a garden.