Spiced Parsnip Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
Carrot cake's earthier, sweeter, more interesting cousin
Contents
Spiced Parsnip Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- 300g parsnips, peeled and coarsely grated
- 250ml sunflower or light olive oil
- 250g soft light brown sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 275g plain flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 0.5 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
- 0.5 tsp fine salt
- 75g walnuts, roughly chopped
- 200g full-fat cream cheese (for the frosting)
- 75g unsalted butter, softened (for the frosting)
- 150g icing sugar
- 3 tbsp maple syrup
Method
- Heat the oven to 160C fan and line a deep 23cm round tin with baking paper.
- Whisk the oil, brown sugar and eggs together until thick and well combined.
- Stir together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, spices and salt in a separate bowl.
- Fold the dry ingredients into the wet, then fold through the grated parsnip and chopped walnuts.
- Scrape into the tin and bake for 40 to 45 minutes until a skewer comes out clean and the top springs back.
- Cool in the tin for fifteen minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool completely.
- Beat the butter until smooth, then beat in the cream cheese and icing sugar until just combined.
- Stir through the maple syrup, spread thickly over the cooled cake, and finish with walnut pieces and a drizzle of maple syrup.
If you have ever made a carrot cake and wondered whether the carrot was really pulling its weight, this is the recipe that answers the question. Parsnips are sweeter than carrots, with a gentle nuttiness and a faint warmth that loves autumn spices, and when you grate them into a cake they melt away into the crumb almost completely, leaving behind nothing but moisture and a deep, honeyed flavour. The clever twist is in the frosting; instead of the usual plain cream cheese topping, I lace it with maple syrup, which echoes the caramel notes in the brown sugar and the earthiness of the root and ties the whole cake together.
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