- Hey, everyone.

Today we are making a spiced parsnip cake with a brown sugar walnut glaze.

They are absolutely scrumptious.

I can't wait to show you, let's get started.

(bright music) So the first step for our spiced parsnip cake is to take two cups of all-purpose flour.

And to that, we're going to add one teaspoon of baking soda.

One teaspoon of baking powder, into the flower.

(bright music) We're going to add two teaspoons of cinnamon.

One generous teaspoon of ginger.

And a fourth of a teaspoon of allspice.

Which goes right into our flower mixture.

We've got a half a teaspoon of salt.

Maybe.

Get that in there.

And then we have a quarter of a teaspoon of nutmeg, which I just love the smell of nutmeg.

I love the taste of fresh nutmeg, which is why I'm just grading it directly into our flower mixture.

And I know, I've said this before, you guys, but the smell is just awesome.

So, you need to get yourself a grader, you need to get yourself some fresh nutmeg.

All right.

To that, now let's just give it a nice little mix.

Get everything together.

And then we're gonna put that aside.

This is a recipe that doesn't require a mixer, which is another awesome reason to give it a try.

So now we're gonna get our liquid ingredients together.

And what we have here is two cups of brown sugar.

Into the bowl.

We have a cup of just regular canola oil, whatever you have around.

Vegetable oil, that goes into our brown sugar.

And then we are also going to add, this is a half a cup of yogurt.

It doesn't really matter if it's creek yogurt or just regular yogurt, whatever you have on hand.

But it gives the cake a nice little tanginess and some extra moisture.

So, we've got that all in.

Let's get this just out of the way here.

And here we go, we're just going to whisk that to get it incorporated, but also to get any lumps out of the brown sugar.

This really couldn't be any easier.

And the smell of the brown sugar is phenomenal, along with it we still get that hint of nutmeg.

I hope you guys check it out, because why not give parsnips, which might be, I don't know, carrots less popular cousin, a try.

This really is a delicious and easy cake to make.

So, all right, here we have our brown sugar mixture together.

And I'm gonna switch over to a spoon from here.

And we're going to add our eggs.

So we need three eggs.

Just gonna get them in.

If you like, you can mix 'em up one at a time, but I find it just as easy.

They'll incorporate pretty easy.

Especially, if they're at room temperature.

Which, by the way, you guys, usually when you're baking, most of your ingredients should be at room temperature.

Like the eggs, like the yogurt.

It will help to incorporate into the mixture a whole lot easier if it's at room temperature.

So here we go, let's get this all mixed up.

See, pretty easy.

In.

Everything looks in, I don't see any strands of egg in our liquid mixture.

And then, to that, we're just going to put our flower and spice mixture into the liquid.

Let's get that over here.

And we just start to mix.

You can be as vigorous as you want, we don't have to really worry too much about being ultra gentle.

We definitely don't wanna tough cake, but at the same time, this is just not a lot of flour to get incorporated into our mixture.

So this looks pretty good.

And then our last ingredient, which is our star ingredient for the cake, is our parsnips.

Which, by the way, these are peeled, and then I actually grated them.

Sometimes in a carrot cake, I know people use shredded carrots, I didn't really wanna use shredded parsnips, because I wanted them to be smaller, and they almost melt into the cake and give a nice little flavor.

So this is two cups grated parsnips.

Right into the bowl.

We're gonna mix that up.

And see, honestly, this part of making the cake could not be easier.

We're just mixing that all up so our parsnips are nicely incorporated into our batter.

Nice, I think we have it all ready to roll.

And today, now, you could just take this batter and butter a 9 by 13 pan and make it all in one big pan, it's perfectly fine, perfectly delicious that way.

But what I am doing today is I am going to put these guys in their own little baking cups.

And I just love the little loaf size baking cups.

So that's what we're gonna do today.

And I know, from experience, that this is about a fourth of a cup scoop, that is perfect for each one of these little baking cups.

So now, all we're going to do is fill them up.

And I should have mentioned, in the beginning, have your oven preheated to 350 degrees.

So that once we get these all scooped up we will be ready to pop them into the oven.

And once they're in the oven, because these are smaller, more like a cupcake size, they're only gonna need to be in the oven for about 13 to 15 minutes, depending on how your oven is.

If you are making the larger cake, the larger, 9 by 13, cake would probably need to stay in the oven for at least 40 minutes or so to bake all the way through.

But I'm just gonna keep on filling our little baking cups here.

And I do know, from making this a few times, that this will make somewhere around 20 of these little guys.

Or if you wanted to do cupcakes, the same 20 cupcakes or so out of one recipe.

So we just have a few more to do here.

A couple more that we're gonna do.

And then we're gonna just get ready to put these guys in the oven.

All right, here we are.

Looking pretty.

Now we're just gonna put 'em in the oven.

And while these guys are baking, we'll go on to the next step, which is the walnut brown sugar, delicious, glaze.

So while our cakes are baking, now is the time to make our brown sugar walnut, delicious, glaze.

And to do that, we just need to do it over the stove top.

And I'm just gonna add ingredients in, before I turn our little stove top on, to our pot.

What we're going to have here is a cup of packed brown sugar.

(gentle music) And I'm using light brown sugar, if you only have dark, that's fine too.

Add by to, then the brown sugar.

We have eight tablespoons of butter.

See, how could this be bad?

And then to the butter and brown sugar, we're adding a half a cup of heavy cream.

Into the pot.

And now we're going to turn our burner on.

And keep it... Yep, keep it on here and just stir.

Get it started to stir.

If you need to, and I always keep a whisk next to me 'cause sometimes you might wanna whisk up some of that brown sugar to get some of the little clumps out.

But right now I'm just gonna let it do its thing and start to get all nice and warm and melty.

And basically that's what we're waiting on, is for everything to melt.

And then just to... Let's just turn this up a little bit.

And then once everything is melted, we're just gonna keep stirring until it gets a little thick.

We're not trying to make any really hard crystallized candy here.

So we don't necessarily want our sugar mixture to get boiling, we want it to be able to be a soft glaze.

But this will take maybe a couple minutes.

We'll just keep our eye on it and stir it.

Don't walk away from it because that's when everything will burn up on you.

But then once we get this nice and melty, and it thickens just a little bit, then we're gonna add our walnuts.

And what we have here is two cups of chopped walnuts.

And I'm telling you, guys, I could literally just skip the cake and eat this all by itself.

It is that delicious.

But there's something too, about the combination of the two of them together, that walnuts with the brown sugar with the parsnip cake and the spices that really put this cake over the top.

But as I'm talking to you guys and showing you this, I realized I forgot the vanilla.

So I'm just going to put my spatula down a second.

You should probably use about a teaspoon of vanilla, and I'm usually very fussy about exactness, I like to measure things all out, but when it comes to vanilla, a little bit extra isn't gonna really gonna hurt anything.

And that was pretty dramatic, wasn't it?

So I'm glad I waited.

Anyway, here we're boiling.

And I'm just gonna keep stirring.

'Cause I don't want it to overflow, number one, and I really don't want it to get too thick.

Like I said, because then it just gets too hard and it's really not very tasty.

But as you can see, look at how pretty this is.

I can smell the brown sugar.

I can smell the vanilla.

I can feel it under my spatula getting a little bit thicker.

We want it to be enough that, when it cools, it holds together on the top of the cake.

We really don't want it to be a syrup.

But I am feeling that it's getting thick, I can feel my spatula needing a little bit more pressure to stir it, but just not enough that it's totally a thickened mixture.

We are now going to remove it from the heat, because we don't need that anymore.

And I just don't wanna put my hot pot down here, so I'm just gonna put it down here.

Well, you know what?

Hey, let's improvise.

And to that then we are adding two cups of the chopped walnuts in.

We're gonna mix that all up together.

Look at that, oh my gosh.

That just looks awesome.

And then we're gonna let it cool, 'cause our cakes are still in the oven anyway.

We're gonna let this cool just a little bit, so it'll thicken up.

And then when our cakes are out, and still a little bit warm, we're gonna put our delicious brown sugar and glaze with walnuts on top of our cakes.

So here are our cakes, out of the oven, and we've given 'em a little time to cool off.

What we're gonna do right now is just show you three of them, how I finish them off and get them all decorated.

But I just wanted to show you how beautiful they look when they come out of the oven.

So here are the three that we're gonna finish off.

And I have these little boxes that I just thought fit perfectly and really give our cakes a little finished look to them.

So I'm using them, certainly, it's not something that is required or an absolute.

But also, they come apart, so you may want to not use them if you do have them available.

But we'll just go with the flow here.

I just thought they make them really look nice and finished.

So, okay, here we go.

They're in their little cases.

And I'm sorry you, guys, but I'm a stickler for this stuff.

All right, we're only gonna show you two.

So what we're gonna is we're going to put our walnut glaze on top.

(bright music) And get that spread out first.

And, goodness gracious, this glaze has really cooled off, thickened up nicely.

As you can see, it's a really cool, caramelly consistency that will just be delicious on top of our cakes.

So here we go.

I'm just gonna get that on, and we're gonna try to spread our walnuts fairly evenly, but yet, let every bit of this little cake get some nice glaze and walnut flavor to it.

There we go.

And now, certainly, goodness gracious, these would be delicious on their own.

But if you guys are getting to know me at all, you'll know that I just can't always leave well enough alone.

So two are glazed cakes.

I'm just gonna add a little bit of a buttercream.

And this is just vanilla American buttercream frosting that I had made up.

And all I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna zhuzh it up with a few dots here and there.

Just give it a little bit of a decorative edge.

But see, see how easy that is.

Just a few dots here and there.

We're gonna do the same over here, and just give it a few dots.

You don't really need any additional sweetness because the glaze certainly gives it that, but I just think it makes a nice overall look and effect.

And then we're gonna take our fun marzipan bees, and just wherever your heart desires, just have them look like they just landed here for some sweet goodness.

So there we have our little bees.

And then, just because too much is never enough, I have some little gold stars.

And I'm just gonna sprinkle those little gold, these are edible gold stars, I'm just sprinkling them on the top.

And there you have it, these guys are just darling and delicious.

And see how easy it was to finish 'em off and put 'em all together.

So now I'm just going to plate them up and then we'll give 'em a taste.

Hey, everyone, if you've liked what you've seen today, make sure that you like and subscribe to the channel for more videos like this one.

And leave me a comment too.

Let me know what you'd like to see made in future "Baking Journals".

So now, let's get to the good stuff and give it a taste.

All right, I wanna make sure I get my wonderful, fabulous glaze and the cake.

(bright music) So, seriously, this is a moist, delicious cake.

The parsnips are sweeter than carrots, and so they land a little bit of a sweetness, but also maybe a little earthiness as well.

And that brown sugar walnut glaze, honest to goodness, it's absolutely delicious.

I really hope you give this one a try.

Enjoy.