Cupcake of the month (April): parsnip and ginger

This might sound a bit wacky, but I promise you it works. Baking cakes with parsnip is no different really from carrot cakes. The cupcake recipe in my calendar for this month was simply a ginger one, but I’d been meaning to have a go at parsnip cake after the success of my chocolate beetroot cake, and I thought the flavour combination of parsnip and ginger would work well. With all the chocolate hanging around at the moment (that makes it sound like the chocolate needs an ASBO – I can assure you that it doesn’t!), these provide a lighter and different alternative.

Apart from the addition of parsnip, I changed the recipe quite a bit from the calendar one: I only put a small amount of sugar in, a third of what it says on the calendar, as the parsnip adds sweetness and I wanted to make some smaller ones to be toddler-friendly as well as some big adult-sized ones with icing on; I added some stem ginger, because in my opinion, if you’re going to have ginger, you might as well have proper chunks of fiery ginger rather than just ground stuff; I used honey instead of syrup, as usual; I made a few other changes too – so it’s nothing like the original really!

The instructions on the calendar said use a cake mixer. I don’t usually bother with one when baking, unless I’m whisking egg whites (I don’t enjoy the muscle ache afterwards when I do it by hand!), mainly because I don’t have one of those super duper fancy gadgets they have on the Great British Bake Off, just a small handheld one that cost about a fiver from Wilkos when I was a student many years ago. But as the calendar put the idea into my head, I was curious to see how the cakes worked out, particularly as I was guessing it would be quite a dense, moist mixture and therefore any extra air I could beat into it would not go amiss. As I suspected, even with the aerating skills of the electric mixer, the cakes didn’t rise massively, but I like the sticky, moist texture anyway, as is often the case with carrot cakes. I would say it’s fine to use either hand or machine in this recipe – whatever mood you happen to be in.

I think that’s all I wanted to waffle on about, so here’s what you do if you want to have a go yourself. Enjoy! Tom’s verdict: de-scrump-tu-licious!

Ingredients

Cakes – makes 10-12 big plus 10-12 small

• 250g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 175g margarine
• 120ml milk
• 40g brown sugar
• 4 tbsp honey
• 1 large parsnip
• 50g stem ginger, plus extra for decoration

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 170ºC (fan) and prepare a muffin tin with cupcake cases and a fairy cake tin with cases.
2. Grate the parsnip, and chop the stem ginger into small chunks.
3. With a spoon, mix the flour and ground spices in a large bowl.
4. Put all the other ingredients apart from the parsnip and stem ginger into the bowl and mix with a mixer until well combined.
5. Add the parsnip and stem ginger and fold in with a spoon until evenly distributed.
6. Fill the cake cases to about three quarters full.
7. Bake for about 25 minutes until golden on top and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
8. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.
9. Meanwhile, mix the ingredients together for the icing until smooth.
10. Put into a piping bag and pipe onto the cooled cakes (big ones only!) in whatever design you wish.
11. Finish with a small chunk of stem ginger on top. Perfect!