Cake. Pistachio. Chocolate. That’s it really. I don’t think I need to write anything more on the subject. It’s obviously going to be awesome on the basis of those 3 words alone. 
But if you need more, imagine crumbly soft pistachio cake sandwiched between a layer of milk chocolate frosting and more frosting on top. Or is it creamy frosting sandwiched between 2 crumbly layers of pistachio cake with frosting on top? Whichever you decide, it’s bloody gorgeous. I gave Christoph a choice of a few cakes and he chose this one. What can I say? He is a man of taste. Obviously.
Category: Cakes
{Chocolate Cake} with Frangelico & Chocolate Frosting
Man oh man, talk about indulgence. First of all let me just say that I had not planned on making a chocolate cake, let alone one that has frosting on top that is nearly as thick as one of the layers. And layers! Definitely didn’t think about making anything with layers. I love it when non-plans come together!
When I saw this awesome recipe in one of my favourite blogs, I just couldn’t resist. I needed cake. I mean neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeded it. Ok, fair enough that it feels like I need cake pretty much all the time but the week at work felt like it was never going to end. You know what I mean? One of those weeks. Add to that a few sleepless nights…you get the picture.
So I thought, alright let’s make a nice and chocolatey cake with frosting on top. That would cheer me up. I mean chocolate, right? But then I was like, wait a minute! If I am going to make this I may as well go all out. Double everything up? 2 cakes? Stack them? Tons of icing? Now we’re talking. Wait, what? Add some Frangelico? Oh my goodness yes!
Bolo de Fuba {Brazilian Cornmeal Cake} with Coconut
I don’t know why but recently I have had so many cravings for various different brazilian foods that I remember from my childhood. And every time I make something it takes me back to wonderful childhood memories, to happy times with my parents in Brazil.
I cannot think of anything more evocative than food. The smell, the taste, the process of making it, it’s so very powerful.
I keep looking through some recipe books my mother sent me and ‘ooh-ing’ and ‘ahhh-ing’ and showing the various recipes to my husband while babbling on about how delicious it is and how we should make it and that I remember the time when and how we should go out immediately to buy the ingredients.
Chocolate and Pistachio Cake {with Courgette and Rice Flour}
Thinking about a treat this Sunday? I hope I’m not too late as I have just the thing for you! Also as the lovely Angie from The Novice Gardener invited me to join them at their Fiesta Friday #5, I thought this would be perfect to take along. If you haven’t checked it out, go do it now! it’s an awesome potluck of beautiful recipes, posts and lovely people.
Parsnip and Pecan Cake with Maple Syrup
As mentioned in my previous post, last Sunday saw me take part in Super+Super Bake Off competition, coming in on 3rd place with this beautiful Parsnip and Pecan cake…
…with awesome bunting of course!
The process of thinking about what bake to make was both fun and all over the place! I thought first about maybe making my Ricotta and White Chocolate Cheesecake. Then I thought, ooh how about my awesome Pecan Pie? This one I hung on to for a long time. Then came the Parsnip cake…yup that was the one!
I do hope you will try this cake and not be put off by the ‘Parsnip Factor’, as I call it, bake it and come up with beautiful ways of decorating it and adapting it. Have fun with it! It will stay moist for days if stored properly. It tastes nutty and fluffy and simply delicious and does not taste of parsnip!
Think of it as the parsnip equivalent of a carrot cake…
Yeah? See it now? That’s right!
The original recipe calls for more sugar in the cake, less pecan and more syrup in filling. I don’t like very sweet cakes if I’m honest. During my try out I made the filling with buttercream and I didn’t like it, it was far too sweet for me. But Christoph really liked it. It’s a personal preference.
So I reduced the amount of sugar and syrup but added more pecans…
Because they are soooooooo good!
If you have more of a sweet tooth you can add an extra 50g of sugar and a couple extra tablespoons of syrup. Or go the buttercream route. It’s up to you! Oh and I also used a fair amount more of mascarpone than the original recipe. But I like my fillings to really fill the cake! Yum yum yum!
Recipe:
Ingredient
175g butter
200g 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
100g pecans, roughly chopped
zest and juice 1 small orange
For the filling and heart decoration
350g tub mascarpone
2 tbsp maple syrup
Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.
Cut out 2 round bases from parchment paper to line your tin ( I just put the tin on top of the paper and with a knife run it around it, it then just needs a slight tug and it come out in a perfect sized round). Then butter 2 x 20cm sandwich tins and line the bases with the parchment rounds you cut.
Melt butter, sugar and maple syrup in a pan over gentle heat. Transfer it into a bowl and leave it to cool slightly.
While the butter mixture/cooling is melting grab your parsnips and apple. Peel them and put it through a food processor. If you don’t have one, just grate it manually and get your workout at the same time! Put it aside. Chop your pecans. Also set it aside.
Once cooled a little, whisk the eggs into the melted butter, sugar and maple mixture. Sift in the flour, baking powder and mixed spice and combine. Then add the grated parsnip, apple and chopped pecans. Zest your orange straight into the mix, then juice and add. Combine the mixture well and divide equally between the tins. To do this just weight the tins on some kitchen scaled as you are dividing. Bake for 45-50 mins until the tops spring back when pressed lightly. Caution: my oven is a rather old battered thing and is very stubborn, with uneven heat distribution. If you have a better oven it may take less time to cook so please keep an eye on it, checking after 25min or so!
Remove from oven and leave it to cool in the tins slightly before removing and leaving it to cool completely.
Filling/Decoration:
Once your cake has cooled completely remove the parchment papers. Turn one cake upside down so that the bottom is now at the top.
Grab your mascarpone, put it in a bowl and mix it with the maple syrup. Do so until it is well combine and nice and creamy.
With a palette knife spread a really good thick amount on the upside down cake. Top it with the other cake, this time the right side up.
You can decorate it however you prefer of course. If you want to do the heart, either grab a cookie cutter and fill it with the mascarpone mixture or if like me you don’t have one you can just cut out a shape, in this case a heart, in card paper, hold it over the cake (Christoph help it for me) and fill it with the mixture. Don’t worry if it’s not perfect, when you start slowly lifting the card paper away from it all excess filling will stay on card and your design left behind will look great!
I HAD to make some mini bunting for it too. A possible tutorial coming up for this…Life is so much better with plenty of bunting around. And fairy lights…but that’s another story.
Both photos shown here taken by the gorgeous Dawn Mead. For details of her work please visit her website http://www.dawnmead.com. She is extremely talented and simply lovely. Go check her out!
Enjoy!
Xoxo
Recipe slightly adapted from bbcgoodfood.
Littlebitsofnice 