Parsnip and honey cake

Parsnip and honey cake

I belong to a book club. Well, when I say book club… It started a couple of years ago with the intention of us reading a book and meeting to discuss it every month. After a couple of months the book club turned into what it is now; we gave up on the books and just enjoy meeting to have a proper catch up. A few times a year we have a clothes swap evening. Which is a brilliant idea for everyone but me. I don’t buy many new clothes and those that I do I tend to wear until holes appear. So, I never have anything to contribute to the clothes swap. For this reason I always take food instead. Last week I took this cake. It was a big success.

The cake in the photo above is only half the mixture. Because I hadn’t made it before I wanted to do a taste test to make sure it was good before I took it along. So I split the mixture into two loaf tins and me and Mr OC polished off the other half a little too easily. Your cake will, therefore, be bigger than the one in the pic.

The cake improves the next day. The first day, the taste is predominantly parsnip. The second day, the parsnip has mellowed and the other flavours are given a chance to shine through. It is a sweet, slightly spicy, moist and delicious cake.

NB: I added 25g of coconut flour in place of 50g of the plain flour, (you need less coconut flour) but I have not specified this in the recipe as you do not need it and I don’t want you to go out and buy it just to make this cake.

250g grated parsnip (from about 350 -400g of unprepared parsnip)
175ml olive oil (not extra virgin) or rapeseed oil or sunflower oil (whatever you have in the cupboard)
150g light brown sugar
100ml honey
3 eggs
100g wholemeal flour or spelt flour
150g plain flour
5g (1tsp) baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice
50g walnuts (optional)

Method

Grease and line a 20cm square or round tin or a 2lb loaf tin. Preheat the oven to 180°c, gas mark 4 or use the centre of the baking oven of the Aga.

Mix together the oil, sugar, honey and eggs in a large bowl until well combined. Add the grated parsnip and mix well.

In another bowl mix together the flours, baking powder, mixed spice and walnuts and then add them to the wet ingredients. Mix well.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and level the surface. Place in the centre of the oven and bake for 45-60 minutes until the top is golden and a skewer comes out clean when pierced through the centre of the cake. Leave in the tin for 10 minutes then place on a wire rack to cool completely.

UPDATE* 7th October 2015

I made the cake again with a few more adaptations (well I can’t help myself) for our evening bread making  class last night. Here is a full sized version of the cake and how yours will look of you don’t split it between two pans.

parsnip and honey cake

The adaptations included using half grated parsnip and half grated carrot and adding 100g currants which I had warmed in a pan with the juice of ½ an orange to plump them up. I frosted the cake before serving with a cream cheese frosting, combining 250g icing sugar with 50g softened butter and 125g cream cheese and the grated zest of an orange. It was a big hit with the ladies on the course.

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10 thoughts on “Parsnip and honey cake”

  1. Oh yum. But your group may find they could successfully combine catching-up AND clothes-swapping AND eating AND drinking, and even…..books. I wouldn’t miss my book-group for anything. It makes me read all kinds of books I wouldn’t necessarily have chosen, but am glad to have been introduced to.

  2. Pingback: Evening class 6th October 2015 | Veg Patch Kitchen

  3. Both versions sound delightful. I’ve only made a parsnip cake once and it was one of my favourite vegetable bakes, so I’m not quit sure why I haven’t made another one. This will have to be remedied, especially now I don’t have to put chocolate into everything 😉

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