A birthday cake for a parsnip lover

rushthatspeaks was inspired by Niki Segnit's The Flavor Thesaurus to build a cake on the flavours of parsnips, anise and lemon. Well, why not? Carrot cake is familiar enough, and parsnips are even sweeter. durham_rambler refers to parsnips as "God's own vegetable", so obviously what he needed for his birthday was a parsnip cake. I refer you to the original recipe for the sheer pleasure of the writing; this is my working version, with my modeifications / conversions / approximations:

( Ingredients )

( Method )

( Icing fail )

( How it was for me )