Swede Cake

This is Mary Isbester's recipe from Shetland. https://www.shetland.org/blog/mary-isbisters-swede-cake. It all started when I had a lot of swedes to use up. A full sack in fact. I have made some very minor changes to the original recipe. In writing this, I tracked down the lady of the original recipe and we had a lovely chat on the phone. Mary asked me about my changes and 'approved': Dutch influence to this Shetland sourced recipe is a little cinnamon. The spices are subtle and, as with carrot cake, you would never guess you are eating vegetable.

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Course Dessert

Ingredients

Cake

175 g Caster sugar
100 g Plain yogurt substitute Greek Yoghurt 70g/Milk 30g
100 ml Sunflower oil
3 Eggs
150 g Swede coursely grated
250 g Self-raising flour
1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Ground ginger
¼ tsp Nutmeg
pinch Sea salt

Frosting

220 g Cream cheese
250 g Icing sugar
Orange for zesting

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180ºC (160ºC fan). Grease and 2 x 8" round low baking tins. I use baking tins with a removable base.
Thoroughly mix the sugar, (milk), yoghurt, oil and eggs in large bowl with a balloon whisk or mixer. Steps after this should continue by hand with a spatula.
Mix in the coursely grated swede with a spatula
Add the flour, spices, and salt and fold in with a spatula.
Transfer the batter equally into the two cake tins.
Bake in the centre of the oven for 25-30 minutes until golden. Test with skewer to ensure baked through. The skewer should come out clean. Place on cooling racks until cool.
Combine the cream cheese and icing sugar together until smooth. If the frosting is runny or too thin then add more icing sugar. This will depend on the cream cheese being used.
Decide which of the 2 half cakes is best for the base and if necessary carefully slice off any raised area to flatten. Spread the frosting on to both cakes. Place the top cake onto the lower half and decorate with zested orange.

Notes

The substitution of Greek yoghurt and milk is simply because that is what we always have in our fridge. Probably you would use bought cream cheese but I also make my own. I will write up that recipe soon. In the meantime here is another recipe https://www.alphafoodie.com/super-easy-homemade-cream-cheese/ - but go easy on the salt if you are making it for frosting.