Description
This marrow cake is topped with lime icing to give a refreshing taste to cool you down in summer. It's easy to prepare and vegetarian.
Ingredients
Units
Scale
For the Cake
- 350g (12oz) marrow, coarsely grated
- 2 large eggs
- 125ml (1/2 cup) vegetable oil
- 85g (1/3 cup) soft brown sugar
- 5ml (1 tsp) vanilla paste
- 300g (1 3/4 cups & 2 tbsp) plain flour
- 5g (2 tsp) ground cinnamon
- 1g (1/4 tsp) nutmeg
- 2.5g (1/2 tsp) bicarbonate of soda
- 2.5g (1/2 tsp) baking powder
- 85g (2/3 cup) walnuts, roughly chopped
- 140g (1 cup) dates, chopped
For The Lime Icing
- 150g (2/3 cup) mascarpone cheese
- 150g (1 1/2 cups) icing sugar
- 1 lime juice only
To decorate
- lime zest
Instructions
- For the Cake: Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Butter and line a 2lb loaf tin with baking parchment.
- Lightly squeeze the gratings in a clean tea towel to remove a little of the moisture. Don’t wring it out too much or the cake will become too dry.
- In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, oil and sugar and vanilla. Set aside.
- In another large bowl, combine the marrow, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, walnuts, dates and a pinch of salt. Ensure that the ingredients are evenly dispersed.
- Stir the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, then pour into the tin.
- Bake for 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. (The cake ended up baking for 1 hour 25 minutes before it was fully cooked in my oven, so keep checking and testing because everyone’s oven is different!)
- Leave to cool, then serve, or freeze for up to 1 month.
- For the Icing: Combine the mascarpone with sieved icing sugar and lime juice. Chill in the fridge until the cake is totally cold.
- Slather the icing over the top of the cake and sprinkle on more lime zest if desired.
Notes
- This cake is best frozen without being topped by icing. Once thawed you can add the icing.
- If you have no walnuts at hand, you can use hazelnuts, pistachios, brazil nuts, pecans or even granola!
- You can substitute the marrow with courgette/zucchini. Best of all, you don’t need to peel the vegetable, so there is added goodness.
- You can omit the dates, but the cake won’t be as sweet. Prunes, dried apricots or dried cranberries are other alternatives.
- If you prefer your cake on the sweeter side, you can up the sugar to 150g (⅔ cup). With the addition of dates, the cake becomes pretty sweet though!
- For something a little decadent, add a handful of dark chocolate chips to the batter before baking.
- If you’re gluten free, just use gluten free flour instead of plain flour.
- Play around with citrus flavours, such as lime, lemon and orange.
- If you don’t have enough marrow, you can use grated carrots to make up the right amount, i.e. 350g. You might need to increase the cooking time though.
- Another fun topping is desiccated coconut.
- Other spices to play with: 1 tsp ground cardamom or ¼ tsp cloves.
- Instead of the mascarpone topping, you can make a lime icing instead. Mix 85g (¾ cup) powdered icing sugar (confectioner's sugar) and 15ml (1 tbsp) lime juice until smooth. Drizzle over the cooled cake and sprinkle with the lime zest.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour 25 minutes
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: British
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 481
- Sugar: 33 g
- Sodium: 96.2 mg
- Fat: 24.9 g
- Saturated Fat: 13.6 g
- Trans Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 60.6 g
- Fiber: 3.1 g
- Protein: 8 g
- Cholesterol: 56.5 mg