Bursting with vibrant flavours and wholesome ingredients, this lemon-infused golden beetroot cake is a delightful twist on a classic sponge. The subtle sweetness of golden beets is enhanced by zesty hints of lemon and the whole is topped with a luscious chocolate cream cheese icing.
Now why is it I’m so useless at taking note of recipes? I pride myself on never following a recipe and using it for inspiration or guidance only. But sometimes it’s quite a useful technique. The moment I saw Dom’s golden cake post I was almost gagging to make it. Trust Dom to come up with such an inspirational recipe.
Golden Beets
Did you know that beetroot doesn’t have to be purple? Golden beets are another type of beetroot. You can also get white ones and candy striped ones too.
Golden beetroot has some of the flavour of its purple cousin, but it’s sweeter and a bit less earthy. They also keep their colour to themselves and don’t dye everything they come into contact with.
I’ve made plenty of beetroot cakes in the past, but never thought of using golden beets and yet we’ve been growing them for years.
Golden Beetroot Cake
It was the golden colour of Dom’s cake that most appealed, but also the word itself. Something to do with summer and the warm glow of hopes and aspirations – a culinary El Dorado.
Anyway, I lifted a couple of large golden beets from our plot and the first chance I got I put them on to cook. First mistake! If I’d looked at the recipe beforehand rather than relying on a very vague memory, I would have realised they were meant to be grated raw. Hey ho, never mind.
The second mistake I was much more bothered by. Dom’s recipe called for light muscovado sugar. Trawling through my cupboards, I realised I’d run out of it, so before I thought about the implications, I’d bunged in a load of dark muscovado sugar. No hope for a beautiful golden cake now. Why I didn’t use caster sugar instead I’ve no idea.
Golden Beetroot Cake: My Way
I made a few intentional alterations as well as mistaken ones. I omitted the vanilla extract as I wanted the lemon and beetroot flavours to shine through. Golden beets are very sweet and have a lovely flavour. I also used a little less sugar and a completely different icing.
Turned out I had half a bar of milk chocolate and half a bar of white hanging around in the cupboard. These seemed the perfect combination and I had to get chocolate in somehow.
The house smelt really sweet and fragrant as the golden beetroot cake was cooking. Its lemon and syrupy notes very much to the fore.
We couldn’t wait for the icing to set properly, so greedily cut into it at the first opportunity. The golden colour was not entirely obscured and it still looked quite appealing. The cake rose well, although CT thought it had the consistency and some of the flavour of treacle pudding. Really it was like a lemony ginger cake without the ginger: quite light, moist and rather moreish.
But, oh such a tragedy, we couldn’t eat it quite fast enough. The weather being very warm and very humid, the cake went mouldy after only three days and we had to throw nearly half of it in the compost bin. Our worms don’t know how lucky they are.
Other Vegetable Cake Recipes You Might Like
- Beetroot & orange cupcakes
- Chocolate courgette cupcakes (vegan)
- Chocolate pecan pumpkin cake
- Jerusalem artichoke cake
- Kale apple cake
- Parsnip & walnut cake
Keep in Touch
Thank you for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this golden beetroot cake, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do you have any recommendations or advice for making cakes with vegetables?
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If you’d like more beetroot recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious and nutritious, of course.
Choclette x
Golden Beetroot Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 250 g golden beetroot
- 100 ml sunflower oil
- 175 g golden caster sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 100 g wholemeal flour
- 50 g ground almonds
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- 1 lemon zest only – try to use organic or at least unwaxed if you can
Icing
- 50 g milk chocolate roughly chopped
- 50 g white chocolate roughly chopped
- 125 g mascarpone cheese
- 125 g cream cheese (I used fromage frais)
- 1 tsp lemon juice
Instructions
Cake
- Scrub the beetroot, but don’t peel it. Boil in a lightly salted water until tender – about ¾ of an hour. Drain and leave to air dry for a couple of minutes. Then mash well with a potato masher or blitz with a stick blender.250 g golden beetroot
- Meanwhile, pour the sunflower oil into a large bowl and whisk in the sugar.100 ml sunflower oil, 175 g golden caster sugar
- Break the eggs in and whisk again.3 large eggs
- Sieve in the dry ingredients, throwing any bran left in the sieve into the bowl and stir until everything is just about mixed.100 g wholemeal flour, 50 g ground almonds, 1 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- Add the mashed beetroot, grate in the lemon zest and stir.1 lemon
- Scrape the batter into a lined 23cm (9 inch) cake tin or greased silicone mould and level the top. Bake in a preheated oven at 180℃ (160℃ fan, 350℉, Gas 4) for 40 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out more or less clean.
- Leave in the tin for ten minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
Icing
- Melt the two lots of chocolates pieces in a bowl suspended over a pan of barley simmering water.50 g milk chocolate, 50 g white chocolate
- Mix the two cheese together with the lemon juice. Then combine the cheese and chocolate mixtures.125 g mascarpone cheese, 125 g cream cheese, 1 tsp lemon juice
- Spread over the cooled cake.
- Decorate as you see fit. I used white chocolate stars.
Choclette says
BVG – thank you, you know how to make a girl feel better 🙂
Janice – thank you. those golden beets are just gorgeous.
C – I haven’t come across white beetroot before. Wonder what they taste like? Beetroot makes for a nice moist cake – too moist in this case!
C says
It looks gorgeous – really moist and delicious. I’m very impressed by your golden beetroot, I occasionally see them, but they are a lovely colour when cooked. I once bought a relative who enjoys her allotment some white beetroot seed! Lots of possibilities…
Janice says
Such pretty golden beetroot! Love that your cake took on a life of it’s own and still worked out delicious!
Brownieville Girl says
It looks amazing, must be a great recipe whichever version you go for!!!
Choclette says
Torview – thank you, it was delicious, if not quite golden enough 😉
Beth – I guess it’s good to treat the worms well once in a while!
Aveen – I can’t quite describe it, but it tastes quite different to ordinary beetroot and it’s very sweet.
Dom – this is true, although I don’t think I’ve made the same thing twice since I started this blog.
Baking Addict – no we can’t believe it either 🙁
Suelle – thank you, it was very disappointing – the throwing away bit, not the cake.
Celia – he he, you’ve got that about right. Do try the golden beets if you get a chance, they are sweeter than purple ones and don’t stain your fingers into the bargain.
CityHippy – they taste different, but I can’t quite describe it – not as beetrooty and a bit sweeter.
Katie – isn’t it a shame to have to throw cake away? Hard luck. They are indeed a gorgeous colour and almost worth it for that alone.
Nic – I live in a world of vague memories, so it’s lucky I get some good results sometimes 😉
Chele – it is very satisfying using the result of one’s own labours in the field – almost worth all the blood, sweat and tears 😉 You’ve experienced some of it with your strawberries I expect.
Gloria – thank you.
Johanna – this year I have more beetroot of both colours than I know what to do with. Last year I couldn’t grow any – shrug!
Johanna GGG says
sounds delicious to me – I would make the same mistakes – but at least if you grow golden beetroot you will have more beetroots to try this with (or at least you will next season if this season’s have run out)
Gloria says
Look georgeous I loveit!! gloria
Chele says
It must be so lovely to be able to bake with produce you have grown yourself. Love the colour of the beets, I can almost taste that cake from here ;0)
nic@nipitinthebud says
for a cake made of vague memories that’s a delicious looking result!
Katie says
Wow what a gorgours sunny colour those beets are. You can sort of see them in the cake, it seems very glowing. The humid weather is a pain for destroying cakes, the same things happened to me earlier this week. Guess you’ll just have to bake it again 🙂
cityhippyfarmgirl says
Hmm, I’ve never seen golden ones before either. Do they have a similar taste to the regular ones?
…and lucky worms indeed! What a pest it went mouldy, it looks quite fine Ms Choclette 🙂
celia says
You’re so funny, Choc, I can just see you boiling the beets and then reading the recipe and going..”oh bugger..” 🙂
I’m amazed by the colour of the beets, I’ve never seen golden ones before. I’ll look out for them – thank you! 🙂
Suelle says
What a shame that so much had to be thrown away – it looks and sounds delicious.
Baking Addict says
I can’t believe you binned half of it! It looks amazing! I will have to try baking with golden beets now and also make sure I read the recipe first 🙂
Dom at Belleau Kitchen says
I love this post, it really made me chuckle. I’m just the same, always skim-reading rather than taking it in properly and paying the consequences. It does look rather good nonetheless and I have seen beetroot cake recipes that call for cooked and mashed beetroot. Anyway. You can always make it again! Xx
Aveen says
I could have helped you eat it! I’ve never had golden beetroot, does it just taste the same as the bogstandard red stuff? We’ve got a load of beetroot on the allotment that need to be made into something, I might give this a try and see how pink it turns out 🙂
Beth (Jam and Clotted Cream) says
Oh no…tragedy! I bet the worms enjoyed it. It looks lovely and moist
Torviewtoronto says
beetroot cake looks delicious