Sprouts – they are definitely the marmite of the vegetable world. You either love them or you hate them. I have to admit that as a child I hated them with a passion. and as much as my Mum would try to disguise them by mashing them in with cabbage, I could always detect their unique taste and flavour!
However, now as an adult I actually like them and do not need to add them to another vegetable to enjoy them, I will eat them as they are , although I especially like them on Christmas day when I cook them with pancetta and chestnuts! It is no surprise then, that both my children do not like brussels sprouts so when I was recently asked if I would like to try some Flower Sprouts and encourage those who do not enjoy eating regular sprouts to try them, I was up for the challenge!
Flower Sprouts are much prettier to look at than brussels sprouts, and, according to the description, are a mix of kale leaves and sprouts in flavour.
Before my vegetables even arrived for review, I had made my mind up that I would make a cake using them, after all, many cakes containing vegetables, such as carrot, courgette, beetroot and sweet potato, taste delicious and more often than not even fussy veggie eaters will eat a cake containing hidden veg! I had seen a recipe back along for a kale cake, and so I knew that that had worked so why not Flower Sprouts? I also know from Slimming World that you can use sweet potato in a cake, to reduce the sugar intake and add natural sweetness and flavour, and I thought another hidden veggie for extra goodness too!
With regards to the cake flavour, I know that sprouts work well with hazelnuts and orange and cranberries – all very festive for this time of year aswell. So I steamed the Flower Sprouts and then blitzed them as finely as I could in a food processor before adding to my cake batter along with the other ingredients.
(I have to own up, I did not haver any sweet potato at the time, so I used some frozen sweet potato mash that I had own my freezer instead, which worked! But really a regular sweet potato cooked would be better….probably!)
The cake batter looked and tasted nice so I was feeling confident that this cake was going to be ok – just had everything crossed that I could fool my family once it was cooked and finished! Anyway, into the oven it went
And out it came
I decided to top it with some orange icing – to add some extra tang and sweetness, and to fool the boys into thinking this was a carrot cake which they would be eating
It was such a pretty colour inside: the little greeny purple flecks from the flower sprouts, the orange from the sweet potato and the Christmassy cranberries.
But the real test was seeing if I had fooled my brussel sprout hating children
*trumpet fanfare if you please*
It worked – they thought it was yummy!!!!
If you fancy tricking your children into eating more veggie goodness, then here is how I made this Flower Sprout Cake
- 125ml olive oil
- 300g self raising flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tbsp mixed spice
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- 100g light brown sugar
- 140g flower sprouts, steamed until cooked, and then blitzed in a food processor
- 140g sweet potatoes, peeled and grated (or use frozen as I did!)
- 100g dried cranberries
- 100g ground hazelnuts
- 2 large eggs
- 4 tbsp maple syrup
- juice 3 clementines
- *Decoration*
- Juice of 1 orange
- 2 heaped tbsp icing sugar
- Pre heat the oven to 180oC / 160oC (fan)
- grease and line a 20 x 30 baking tray/ovenrproof dish
- steam the flower sprouts for 3-4 minutes as stated on the packaging
- place the cooked flower sprouts into a food processor and blitz them until they are minuscule
- in a large bowl, place the oil and the sugar and beat well for 5 minutes
- add the eggs, maple syrup, the flour, ground hazelnuts, bicarb, baking powder, clementine juice and spices and beat well for a few minutes more
- add your cooked sweet potato mash and the flower sprouts and cranberries and mix well
- pour into your lined oven dish/baking tray
- cook for about 30 minutes until cooked all thew way though the middle
- leave to cool in the tin and then transfer to a wire rack
- once the cake is completely cold, make your icing by mixing the icing sugar with the juice of 1 orange
- spread over the top of the cake
- serve and enjoy
For more conventional ways of cooking with Flower Sprouts, please check out these recipes:
Flower Sprouts are currently available to buy in Lidl, Aldi, Waitrose, M&S, Asda and Sainsburys
I was sent Flower Sprouts for the purpose of a review and was compensated for the ingredients I used.
HELEN
when you mentioned you were making a cake I must admit that I was a bit dubious, but it looks great! and if the boys ate it then that’s good enough for me…
Eb Gargano
Wow, I had never heard of flower sprouts before but they look gorgeous…I will look out for them next time I’m in the supermarket. I love what you did with them…I would never have thought of putting them in a cake but clearly it worked. Love the pics of your boys wolfing down your cake with no clue what’s really in it!! 🙂
Project 365, 2015. Week 50 - Mummy Mishaps
[…] week saw us collecting and decorating our Christmas trees, I fooled the boys into eating some Flower Sprout Cake, making it to the park after work because it was dry and warm for once, more Christmas card […]
hijackedbytwins
It is always great when the kids give you the thumbs up even if there are good for them vegetables inside! Must try this one! Thank you for sharing with #CookBlogShare x
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