Healthy Vegan - Rutabaga aka Swede Date Cake with Miso Caramel Sauce

This handsome dark Rutabaga Cinnamon Nutmeg Cake has been a long time coming.  I bookmarked it way back in 2010.  For those of us living in the UK, Rutabaga is known as Swede and it is quite an underrated vegetable and also one that causes much debateMiso Caramel Sauce which transformed it from a cake to a pudding mimicking the British Sticky Toffee Pudding found on the menu of most traditional pubs. The idea to serve it with miso caramel sauce came from one of my favourite experimental chefs in the UK Stevie Parle who made a Is it a Swede or a Turnip... 

I baked this Swede aka Rutabaga Cake on Good Friday.  TheMiso Caramel Sauce which transformed it from a cake to a pudding mimicking the British Sticky Toffee Pudding found on the menu of most traditional pubs. The idea to serve it with miso caramel sauce came from one of my favourite experimental chefs in the UK Stevie Parle who made a Miso Sticky Tofee Pudding a couple of years back for Christmas eve and I have been wanting to try it for long while. 

Although I have cooked with Swede a lot.  My approach to it was often one of I could take it or leave it, I  found this muted orange waxy root vegetable too sweet in savoury dishes.  I found that like  parsnips and sweet potatoes, that the swede would be better appreciated in a Sweet cake like carrot cake.  So when I started blogging in 2009, it was nice to find some cookbooks and chefs using vegetables in cakes, veggie desserts and puddings.  

Julia Belluz in Globe Life writes an interesting article  Have you Rutabaga Cake and eat it Too.  This is praise to Harry Eastwood, British celebrity chef and cookbook author of Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache (2009).  Harry Eastwoods 80 cakes are super loaded with vegetables, but the vegetables are hidden under beautiful cake names like Orange and Drizzle Cake which is made with rutabaga, Heartache Chocolate Cake made with whole aubergines and a Victoria Sponge made with Potatoes that you would never know that this is a veggie dessert, veggie pudding and veggie cake cookbook.   Harry Eastwood is perhaps the first Veggie Desserts food writer and vegetable cookbook author in the UK.  She  opened up the imagination of chefs, home cooks and food bloggers alike. 

Other cookbooks I highly recommend with vegetables in cakes are 
 called Miso Caramel Sauce which transformed it from a cake to a pudding mimicking the British Sticky Toffee Pudding found on the menu of most traditional pubs. The idea to serve it with miso caramel sauce came from one of my favourite experimental chefs in the UK Stevie Parle who made acelery cookies from it a while back. 

There is also an e book called 50 Decadent Vegetable Cake Recipes by Brenda Van Niekerk; and Baking With Vegetables (2015) 
Other Rutabaga Sweet Cake Recipes from around the world
Miso Caramel Sauce which transformed it from a cake to a pudding mimicking the British Sticky Toffee Pudding found on the menu of most traditional pubs. The idea to serve it with miso caramel sauce came from one of my favourite experimental chefs in the UK Stevie Parle who made a Gluten Free Honey Cake (2010) also has a fantasticMiso Caramel Sauce which transformed it from a cake to a pudding mimicking the British Sticky Toffee Pudding found on the menu of most traditional pubs. The idea to serve it with miso caramel sauce came from one of my favourite experimental chefs in the UK Stevie Parle who made a recipe for Rutabaga Vanilla Mash and Miso Caramel Sauce which transformed it from a cake to a pudding mimicking the British Sticky Toffee Pudding found on the menu of most traditional pubs. The idea to serve it with miso caramel sauce came from one of my favourite experimental chefs in the UK Stevie Parle who made aRutabaga Apple Salad.

I am sharing this Rutabaga aka Swede Cinnamon Nutmeg and Date Cake with Miso Caramel Sauce with CookBlogShare hosted by Easy Peasy Foodie; and Honest Mum for Brilliant Blog Posts.
Serves 8 - 12
Ingredients
115g soft butter
210grams golden caster sugar
110ml vegetable oil
2 eggs

175g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

280grams grated Rutabaga aka Swede
80grams dates, sliced
Method
Soften and cream the butter with the sugar, then stir in the oil and eggs, then stir in the dry ingredients, followed by the grated vegetables and dates.
Spoon into a 10inch round baking tin
Transfer to oven gas mark 4/180oc
Bake for 50 minutes to an hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Adapted from Patrick Fahy Rutabaga Spice Cake. 

For the Yummy Miso Caramel Sauce 
Follow this link for the recipe from Naturally DIY (vegan)
Follow this link from Food 52 (vegetarian)