I recently bought a fabulous Women’s Weekly cookbook called “Real Sweet Cookbook” (see here).

In it there are some wonderful sweet cake and dessert recipes using fruits and vegetables as the base.  One such recipe is for a Parsnip Spice Cake  (page 185), and whilst I liked the cake I felt it needed a little bit more oomph.

So I couldn’t help but be inspired by Anneka Manning’s Carrot and Parsnip Picnic Loaf (see here) and decided to play around with that concept, but also wanted to include ginger which I think it a wonderful ingredient that goes so well with these two vegetables, and this recipe is the result.

This is a very easy cake to make, it is beautiful and moist and will keep well for a few days at room temperature.

I have topped it with my White Chocolate Icing (see here), and from the comments I received from my wonderful neighbourhood “taste testers” I feel sure you will love it too.

Carrot Parsnip and Ginger Cake

 

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Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

1 hour 55 mins

Total time

2 hours 10 mins

 

... and top of icing is well dusted with crystallised ginger

Author: Gina @ The Passionate Pantry

Serves: 10 serves

Ingredients

INGREDIENTS FOR CAKE

• 350g white spelt flour, or plain flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbls ground ginger
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 2 tsp sea salt flakes, or 1 tsp fine sea salt
  
  
• 60g fresh ginger, peeled weight
  
  
• 250g raw carrot, peeled weight, chopped into chunks
• 250g raw parsnip, peeled weight, chopped into chunks
  
  
• 6 x 60g eggs
• 350g honey
• 250g light olive oil
• 2 tsp vanilla bean paste
• Rind of 1 large orange
  
  

TOPPING

• Half serve of white chocolate icing
• 100g crystallised ginger, finely chopped

Instructions

1. Grease and line 22cm (base measurement) round cake tin and place onto baking tray
2. Preheat oven to 150 degrees fan forced, and place rack into middle of oven
3. Place flour, baking powder, ground ginger, mixed spice and salt into TM bowl and mix 10 seconds / speed 5, put aside into a large mixing bowl, do not clean TM bowl
4. Place ginger into TM bowl and chop 3 seconds / speed 7, scrape around bowl
5. Add carrot and parsnip to TM bowl and chop 5 seconds / speed 5, scrape around bowl and repeat 1 second / speed 5
6. Add the ginger, carrot and parsnip to flour mix and stir through until vegetables are well coated, do not clean TM bowl
7. Place eggs, honey, light olive oil, vanilla, and orange rind into TM bowl and blend 10 seconds / speed 5
8. Add wet mix to flour mix and stir through until everything is well incorporated
9. Place batter into cake tin (it will look quite full) and bake for 1 hour and 50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into middle comes out clean (it takes exactly 1 hour and 55 minutes in my oven)
10. Remove cake from oven and allow to cool completely in baking tin
11. When cool, cover cake with white chocolate icing, then sprinkle top with chopped crystallised ginger
12. Allow icing to set for an hour before covering and storing cake at room temperature for up to three days

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