Maple, Parsnip and Apple Cake

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I love carrot cake, and the other day I was out with a friend and spotted another vegetable cake, this time with parsnip in it, so I wanted to make one.
I have a friend who has a lovely little tea room, and she gave me this recipe - it's very popular in her shop.

For the cake you need - 175g butter or margarine, 200g demerara sugar, 100ml maple syrup, 3 eggs, 250g sr flour and 2 tspn baking powder, 2 tspn mixed spice, 250g parsnip, peeled and grated,1 medium eating apple, grated, zest and juice of an orange, icing sugar to dust the top.

Preheat oven 180C                     Grease and line the bottoms of 2 x 20cm sandwich tins.

Melt the butter, sugar and syrup gently in a pan. Allow to cool a bit then beat in the eggs. Stir in the flour and baking powder and the spice.
Add the parsnip, apple and orange. Pour into the tins and bake for 25-30 mins.
Cook in tins for 5 mins then take cakes out and cool on a wire rack.
Sandwich the cakes together with a vanilla butter cream or mascarpone or even whipped double cream, and dust the top with icing sugar.

For the vanilla butter cream you need 125g butter, 250g sieved icing sugar, about 2 tspn milk and 1 tspn vanilla extract. Beat the butter and icing sugar till creamy - add a little milk to help, then add 1 tspn vanilla extract and beat in.
Put one of the cakes on a cake plate then spread the butter cream on top. Add the second cake and dust with icing sugar.


 You couldn't tell that there was any parsnip in it, just an flavour of something elusive. It has a light texture and is moist with a nice spicy note. A good edition to a cake repertoire. Maple syrup is quite pricey, so you could use golden syrup instead.

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