Parsnip cake in November’s kitchen
When Martin and I visit groups for our ‘Gardening on the Menu – The Winter Table’ talk I take along my Parsnip cake for members to have a taste. It seems to go down quite well and there are usually only a few crumbs left on the plates by the end of the evening! It’s an easy one to make so definitely worth a go if you fancy something a bit different and with some Christmas flavours in there it always starts to make us feel a bit festive!
Parsnip cake
Takes about an hour. Cuts into 15 pieces
300g parsnips grated (or you could add in some carrot)
4 clementines or 2 oranges, zest and juice
140g sultanas
300g SR flour
Pinch of salt
300g soft light brown sugar
2 good tspn mixed spice
1 tspn ginger or nutmeg
1 tspn bicarb of soda
200g butter, melted
4 large eggs, beaten
200g icing sugar
4 or 5 crushed white sugar cubes (optional decoration)
Preheat oven to 180C/fan160/gas 4. Grease and line a 30x20cm traybake tin
- Put the sultanas in a small bowl, add the clementine juice and zest from 2 fruits. Microwave for 2 minutes on medium setting. Stir well and leave to cool.
- In a large bowl mix together the flour, sugar, spices, bicarb and salt
- Melt the butter then when cooled add the beaten eggs and sultanas and any juices from the bowl
- Tip into the dry ingredients and mix together with a wooden spoon. Add in the grated parsnip and give another good stir.
- Pour into your baking tin then pop in the oven for a good 35-40 minutes. Test with a skewer. Leave to cool in the tin then turn out on to a wire rack ready for icing
- Sift the icing sugar into a small bowl then add the juice of 1 of the clementines and stir well. Add more juice a bit at a time to make a fairly runny icing.
- Drizzle or spread the icing depending on the finish you prefer – either way let it run down the sides a bit!
This is one of those handy cakes that will keep for quite a few days so there’s no rush to eat it unless of course you want to!
It freezes well too but better to do it without the icing.