Sunday, February 22, 2009

Cake experimentation

We have a lot of parsnips at the moment. An awful lot. We have had to dig them up from the half allotment today, as we are giving it back shortly, so we can concentrate on the whole plot.

Don't get me wrong, I love parsnips - roasted, in soup, in rosti, mashed with potato as a topping for cottage pie, and so on. But, if you can make carrot cake, my reasoning went, why not parsnip cake? And so, by the power of Google, I found a recipe.

I made the cake. It smelt good (it contains cinnamon and who can resist the smell of cinnamon?). I took it out of the oven. It looked good. (Apologies for the photos - it's rather dingy today).

We waited for it to cool, and for it to be time for afternoon coffee. A slice of cake with coffee on a Sunday afternoon - lovely.
One mouthful - SomeBeans appeared polite and said nothing. For a moment.
Ummm. Have you ever accidently eaten soap? Except not normal soap, but soap that has something very bitter added to it, to discourage foolish people from eating it? No, probably not - neither had we.

Have you heard of the song by Tom Lehrer - Poisoning Pigeons in the Park? Hope the pigeons like it more than we do...

Roast parsnips for dinner tonight.

We have a glut of leeks at the moment, too. Anyone for leek pavlova?

9 comments:

Anna said...

Now there's a surprise. It looks and sounds as if it should be most yummy. Didn't the Romans use parsnip as a sweetener ? Will be interested to hear whether the pigeons tune their beaks up at such fare.
Do let us know.

Helen/patientgardener said...

Yum parsnip cake!!!! Its amazing what you can find on google! I think you should stick to parsnip mash

HappyMouffetard said...

The roast parsnips were very nice. I was worried that they would be revolting too, as a result of being in the ground too long or something. But no, it was just the cake that was vile.

chaiselongue said...

Thanks for the warning. I'm going to try growing them here for the first time this year, but I don't know whether they will grow in this dry hot climate. If they do, I now know not to make cake with them. With all the delicious things we eat here, parsnips are the only thing that I miss from Wales!

Lavender and Vanilla Friends of the Gardens said...

I know potatoe cake is very nice I have made it, would you like the recipe? When a glut of potatoes arrive! I have a glut of tomatoes. I have not made a tomatoe cake just a pizza. It is always worth a try even if it is not successful.

Anonymous said...

Good job you posted this. I've got a parsnip glut and would have gone with a cake eventually. There is probably some scientific explanation for the taste. Call Heston Blumenthal (lol)

Lucy Corrander said...

Poisoning pigeons in the park . . . I always sing it when I'm happy. I only know the first two lines so I sing them over and over until it counts as a song.

I sing it too to people who need cheering up. For example, people who have eaten too many parsnips.

Lucy

Julia said...

And maybe we'll do in a squirrel or two!

Let me know if it has that effect, as I shall use it in my garden against the little furry buggers.

Luoluo said...

When I was reading this post, you made me laugh a lot.

Thanks for your parsnip. I roasted the one I gotten, It was very nice. Somehow fortunately it is the only way I known of cooking it ...(we don't have parsnip in China).