Flower Sprout Cake

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

I have to say that both my children and my OH were fooled into thinking this cake was a carrot cake and not one filled with flower sprouts and sweet potato! It tastes really lovely and although I think there was a slight aftertaste not common with a carrot cake, I think this is only because i know it contained what it did! I also think there is a slight sprouty smell when I open the tin in which the cake is being store inside, but again this might be because I know what secrets lie inside the sponge! But thanks to the spices and orange and hazelnuts, this really is a yummy moist cake which I know is packed full of lots if hidden veggie goodness, so good in fact that Burton is taking a slice in for his school snack today!

For more conventional ways of cooking with Flower Sprouts, please check out these recipes:

The Crazy Kitchen

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.