Catherine Berwick's Parsnip & maple syrup cake
Cooking time
Prep: 20 mins Cook: 45 minsSkill level
EasyServings
Serves 8The winner of Good Food's 20th birthday cake competition, we think this is the new carrot cake
Nutrition and extra info
Additional info
- Unfilled sponges can be frozen
Nutrition
- kcalories
- 697
- protein
- 8g
- carbs
- 79g
- fat
- 41g
- saturates
- 22g
- fibre
- 3g
- sugar
- 52g
- salt
- 1.12g
Ingredients
- 175g butter, plus extra for greasing
- 250g demerara sugar
- 100ml maple syrup
- 3 large eggs
- 250g self-raising flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp mixed spice
- 250g parsnips, peeled and grated
- 1 medium eating apple, peeled, cored and grated
- 50g pecans, roughly chopped
- zest and juice 1 small orange
- icing sugar, to serve
For the filling
- 250g tub mascarpone
- 3-4 tbsp maple syrup
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Method
- Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease 2 x 20cm sandwich tins and line the bases with baking parchment. Melt butter, sugar and maple syrup in a pan over gentle heat, then cool slightly. Whisk the eggs into this mixture, then stir in the flour, baking powder and mixed spice, followed by the grated parsnip, apple, chopped pecans, orange zest and juice. Divide between the tins, then bake for 25-30 mins until the tops spring back when pressed lightly.
- Cool the cakes slightly in the tins before turning out onto wire racks to cool completely. Just before serving, mix together the mascarpone and maple syrup. Spread over one cake and sandwich with the other. Dust with icing sugar just before serving.
Recipe from Good Food magazine, November 2009
Comments, questions and tips
Comments
very nice, I wiill copy this
www.ijustcute.com
I've just made this for a group of cake loving friends who are coming to my house tonight. There is a long standing joke about me and parsnips (just cos I'm a vegetarian) so I cant wait to see their faces when I tell them whats in it!
I only had smaller cake tins so with the leftovers I made some cupcakes, I'm looking forward to trying them.
It states 20 prep time - it took me nearly 3 times that long with all the weighing, grating and mixing - hopefully it's worth it.
One of the best cakes I've ever made! Like some others have said, I baked it for a bit longer, about 50 minutes. I made it in one big deep cake tin instead of two sandwich tins and it turned out wonderfully. I also used golden syrup and left out the nuts and orange juice. The only problem is it doesn't last very long :)
Baked this for a birthday - took about 45 mins in fan oven, also used slightly less maple syrup in filling than suggested. I know it is meant to be moist but did wonder if it was a tad too moist, hard to know when it was cooked although did usual skewer test. No complaints from the eaters!! Would definitely make again, nice flavour.
Love this cake! I've previously made it sticking to the exact ingredients but today had a go at changing it and it was just as delicious. I used Clover light instead of the butter and 2/3 the amount of mascarpone which in total saved over 1,000 calories. I didn't have an orange so used a lemon and didn't have maple syrup (which is over £5 a bottle) so used agave syrup (which is available plain as I used or in maple syrup flavour). Baked at 160*c in my fan oven and it took 25 mins to be perfectly cooked through.
