How to Make Cake With Vegetables | Back to Basics

Meat substitutes are a sorry sham compared to the glories of vegetables - and if you're inventive, you can use your greens in all sorts of surprising ways, from bolognese to browniesBeing a well-brought-up boy, I pride myself on leaving a clean plate. It helps that I have a double-jointed index finger: pressed down flat on a plate, it works like a sort of windscreen wiper, scooping up any leftover crumbs or juices and leaving the crockery (in my wife's words) "sinisterly clean". It also helps that I am both greedy and curious. I'll eat just about anything, from the exotic (squashed guinea pig in Peru) to the humdrum (cold baked beans in the tin, with a splash of Lea & Perrins - mmm). But we all have our limits. If there's one type of food I really struggle to choke down, it's the MEAT-IMPERSONATING VEGETARIAN OPTION. To call it food is perhaps too kind, since most of the time it appears to have been cooked up in a laboratory by a crazy scientist with a grudge against tastebuds.

My five least favourite foodstuffs of all time are:
1 Vegetarian "bacon"
2 Vegetarian "sausages"
3 Nut cutlets (like a nut roast but formed into the shape of a lamb cutlet).
4 Quorn bolognese
5 Natto. It's not a meat substitute, but it is a Japanese fermented soy dish and it's slimy and disgusting. And here's another one for the list. I recently found out that in the States you can buy a product called Un-Steak. I have never tried it, but not since coming across a well-thumbed cookbook called One Is Fun in a second-hand shop has a culinary discovery made me feel so sad. If you don't want to eat meat, why would you eat a meat-impersonator? Especially when there's a perfectly good - no, amazing - alternative staring you in the face. Vegetables are so delicious, not to mention nutritious, there's really no need to resort to second-rate fakes. Although I'm not vegetarian, I hardly eat any meat these days: a scattering of bacon for flavour sometimes, and a joint for special occasions. And since having children, I have learned to incorporate vegetables into all sorts of places that I wouldn't have done before. I melt down kale into the base of a bolognese sauce. I grate raw beetroot into my brownie mix or bake it for a long time and cut it into sweet "jellies". But my favourite unexpected vegetable dish has to be this parsnip cake - invented by my collaborator Jane Baxter. It is unbelievably moist and delicious. It has a texture similar to coconut macaroons - a kind of jellied bite. It makes a great alternative to carrot cake and can be filled either with white chocolate cream-cheese icing or with a sweetened lime cream. If it sounds to you like something a cranky health-nut would produce, please just make it once. I guarantee it will make you swoon and is destined to become a regular part of your repertoire.

Parsnip, cashew and coconut cake

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes Serves 8-10
250g butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
250g caster sugar
4 eggs
150g rice flour
2 tsp baking powder
100g desiccated coconut
200g cashew nuts, finely chopped
250g parsnips, finely grated
About 4 tbsp milk For the white chocolate cream-cheese icing
100g white chocolate
200g cream cheese
75g butter, softened
A few drops of vanilla extract
300g icing sugar, sifted1 Heat the oven to 150C/300F/gas mark 2. Grease two 22cm cake tins and line them with baking parchment. 2 Cream together the butter and caster sugar in a mixing bowl, then add the eggs to the mixture one by one, beating well after each addition. 3 In a second bowl, sift the rice flour with the baking powder and mix well. Add the coconut, cashews and grated parsnip. 4 Combine the two bowls of ingredients, adding the milk slowly, until the cake mixture reaches "dropping" consistency.5 Divide the mixture between the two cake tins and bake in the oven for 30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Set aside to cool. 6 To make the icing, break up the white chocolate and melt it in a large heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, making sure the bowl doesn't touch the surface of the water. Leave it to cool a little. 7 Add the cream cheese, butter and vanilla to the melted chocolate and beat together. Gradually beat in the icing sugar. 8 Use half the icing to sandwich the two cakes together, then spread the rest of the icing over the top. Leave it to set a little before serving.

Tips • For an extra flourish, sprinkle toasted coconut and chopped cashew nuts on top to decorate. • For a sweetened lime cream as an alternative filling, fold the seeds of a vanilla pod into whipped cream and add the grated zest and juice of a lime with a little sifted icing sugar. This recipe was originally published in Leon: Fast Vegetarian by Jane Baxter and Henry Dimbleby. Henry Dimbleby is co-founder of the natural fast-food restaurant chain Leon (@henry_leon). Get your kids cooking at cook5.co.uk
Parsnip, cashew and coconut cake: have you ever seen a child look this excited about vegetables before? Photograph: Jill Mead/Guardian