Parsnip and apple breakfast cake

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, we all know it.
There is a saying: eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar
In Britain and Ireland the day is started as a king with their traditional cooked breakfast "the iconic fry-up". Cooked well, the "English breakfast" truly is a wonderful dish.
If you want to do it right you should start with a bowl of cereal and a piece of fruit, fresh juice and finish the meal with a slice of toast topped with marmelade. Last but not least, all this must be washed down with a nice cup of tea.
If this isn't a hearty breakfast, I don't know what is.
Naturally you can't eat like this every day, most people only treat themselves on a traditional "Full monty" when on holiday or on special occasions.
So alternatives are beans on toast or perhaps this breakfast cake.
Also perfect with your 'four O' clock' cup of tea and much better than a candybar.
Go on, treat yourself.

"And then to breakfast, with what appetite you have." Shakespeare
This breakfast cake is very moist and more a cross between a bread and a cake.
Someone from Ireland told me it also resembles an "Irish tea brack" though this is not made with tea.
I left out the "normal" sugar in this cake and substituted with honey and apple sirup. This makes this cake a healthier treat.

What do you need
180 g unsalted butter
1 cup of honey
0,5 cup of apple sirup, plum sirup or golden sirup
3 organic eggs
330 g selfraising flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 apple, grated
0,5 tsp mixed spice (see here to learn what goes into mixed spice)
2 parsnips (250 g), grated
80 g walnuts, chopped
2 tsp of fresh orange juice
a little bit of orange zest

Method
Grate the parsnips and apple.
Preheat your oven to 180°C.
Grease a loose bottom baking tin or line with baking paper
Melt the sirup, honey and butter, allow to cool
Mix the flour, mixed spice and baking powder.
Add the egg and sirup mixture to the flour followed by the grated apple and parsnips.
Finally add the orange zest an juice.
Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 1 hour.
Let the cake cool in the tin and dust with Icing sugar when cooled.

My cake tin was a bit smaller so I made some smaller cakes from the leftover dough, ideal to stick into boyfriends', husbands' or childrens' luchboxes.