I’ve been given a most fantastic present by a lovely and newly wedded friend. The fact that it was her wedding and I was given the present was a little odd, but I wasn’t going to say no. A glass cake stand with dome which I have long been wanting – fantastic! Of course I had to make something right away to show it off, but what? The answer came via an e-mail from a friend wanting the recipe to a chocolate beetroot cake I’d made a couple of years ago. What a good idea. Why didn’t I think of that? One of the crops we’ve managed to grow really well this year is beetroot with the resulting “what else can I make with beetroot?” kind of mutterings. I used the Green and Black’s recipe that I used last time, but with less sugar.
This is how I did it:
- Cooked a large beetroot, then peeled and mashed it.
- Melted 4.5 oz butter with 100g bar 85% dark chocolate and 6oz dark brown sugar.
- Sieved 10oz flour (5oz wholemeal spelt, 4oz gluten free flour (as had run out of white spelt) and 1oz quinoa flour)), 1 tbsp cocoa and 2 level tsp baking powder into a bowl and made a well in the centre.
- Poured chocolate mixture into the flour and mixed in together with 3 large eggs (1 duck & 2 chicken as I’d run out of duck eggs).
- Mixed in beetroot and spooned into a 23cm cake thingy.
- Baked at 180°C (gas 4) for 30 mins.
- When cooled placed on new cake stand then sifted with 1 tsp of icing sugar.
Moist with a smooth texture, it’s definitely a good use for surplus beetroot. My chief taster is not at all partial to this vegetable. Luckily this cake is very chocolatey and apart from the rather deep red earthy colour, the beetroot is quite hard to detect. It got the thumbs up!
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