Honey parsnip cake and a bee swarm

A couple of weeks ago I was just leaving home when a neighbour alerted me to a bee swarm in a tree by her unit.  The bees had been so thick in the air when she got home that she had to wait for it to settle before getting in her front door.  The swam resting in the tree (see my photo below) was very alive with bees crawling over it and looked like something out of a science fiction film.

Apparently our body corporate was sending someone over but he didn't appear before the weekend.  We assumed it would be an exterminator.  I read online and found that local bee keepers could take the swams away with no harm to the bees.  So I rang a local shop called Bee Sustainable who were very helpful in directing me to a local bee keeper.  I felt very proud of my work.  However as soon as the bee keeper arrived the swam flew off into the air with a deafening buzzing and disappeared over the roof tops.  It was a very odd experience.

While reading online about bee keepers, I was pleased to read the Beechworth honey is one of the brands that are Australian produced.  This is the honey we have at the moment.  Strange all the incidental knowledge you pick up in while trying to keep a house in order.  As you have probably gathered from the title of this post, I had great plans for my Beechworth honey.

Cakelaw does an amazing job at keeping up with interesting cake recipes in newspapers and sharing them on her Laws of the Kitchen blog.  She recently posted a Honey Carrot Cake that Dan Lepard had devised.  Of all the bookmarked recipes and cookbooks of recipes in my life, this one rose to the top of the pile.  It was a most intriguing recipe with apple, tahini, spices and cocoa. 

When it came to baking the cake, it was the parsnips rather than my carrots that needed using up.  And I have always wanted to bake a parsnip cake.  I also made a few small changes to the spices, used cranberries rather than sultanas and didn't douse it in honey and cream cheese frosting when it came out of the oven.  I had hoped to use up some cream cheese in the frosting but by the time I made the cake E had eaten too much of it.  There wasn't enough enough to make with yoghurt in this frosting.  So I just spread it on a few slices instead.

This is not a neat delicate cake for maiden aunts.  No.  It is a moist cake that produces slices which are a little crumbly but you don't mind because they are so dense with flavour and cranberries and charisma.  If cakes have charisma!  I loved it.  If you want to really impress guests with the cake, go the whole hog and douse it in honey and cream cheese frosting.  But for a quiet moment with a cuppa, this cake is delicious by itself or with a lick of butter.  Whichever way you eat it, this honey parsnip cake is bound to please.

I am sending this cake to Veggie Desserts, Michelle Utterly Scrummy and Fuss Free Helen for Extra Veg and to Create Make Bake and Mrs D Plus 3 for Fabulous Foodie Fridays #74.

More vegetable cakes on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
Avocado pound cake with cream cheese frosting
Chocolate beetroot brownies
Chocolate carrot cake
Kale cake (v)
Mashed potato chocolate cake
Moist and nutty carrot cake
Spicy pumpkin tea cake

Honey parsnip cake
Adapted from Dan Lepard via Laws of the Kitchen

125ml neutral oil (I used rice bran)
175g honey
50g tahini
2 eggs
2 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp cocoa
200g grated parsnip
1 small apple, peeled and grated
40g glace ginger, finely chopped
150g dried cranberries
175g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 160C.  Grease and line a loaf tin.  (Mine is 13x22cm but Dan suggested a 10 cup loaf tin.)

Combine oil honey and tahini in a large mixing bowl.  Mix in eggs, mixed spice and cocoa.  Stir in parsnip, apple, ginger and cranberries.  Finally mix in flour and baking powder.

Scrape the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer comes out clean when inserted in the middle.

Serving suggestions: Dan suggested brushing the hot cake with warmed honey and topping with a cream cheese frosting.  I preferred serving slices with butter or cream cheese spread over it.  A drizzle of honey or jam could be added to this if it wasn't sweet enough.

On the stereo:
In Blood Memory: Jen Cloher