Ever since I’ve heard about Chocolate beetroot cake, which was a few years ago now, (I think I seen Hugh Whittingstall make it) I’ve wanted to make it. I do enjoy eating picked beetroot in salads, so yummy, it has the slight sweet, earthy and sharp taste to it.
I did have my doubt though, as raw cooked beetroot does have the slightly earthy taste I was worried that this taste would come through in the cake but it didn’t discourage me from making it. For me it’s all about trying and testing, if it doesn’t work, doesn’t matter I’ve had a go. I thought the good thing would be by adding the beetroot would make it quite moist.
When you usually buy beetroot it’s usually a lovely deep purple colour right????…..well wrong, according to the one my dad grew. These looked completely normal in their raw state from the outside, just like any other beetroot but NO. I was very shocked to see that once cooked these beetroot were of a light/white/pink variety, yes they are available, not that I knew!!!!….ARRRHHHHHHHHH!!!! no no no, my dads answer to it was yes, they are beetroot but a different variety. I told him you could have told me this before I started baking. This was a bit of a downer for me. The whole point of the beetroot cake is to get that pinky/reddy/purply tinge to the cake! WELL I wasn’t going to get that was I.
In the end the cake for me was OK, I couldn’t see the pinky/red tinge colour I was after 🙁 but that was bound to happen. I could slightly taste the beetroot, I wasn’t sure if it was due to the different variety being more earthy in taste or that’s just how it is. I found this cake slightly dry but OMGGGGG I thought let me micro it and what a transformation, it was like having a steam pudding and the melted chocolate on top made it heavenly.
I do now want to try the beetroot cake again, but this time with ‘normal’ beetroot. I found this amazing recipe which is eggless and it looked just as moist as the egg version.
- 100g - cocoa powder
- 200g - plain flour
- 2 tsp - baking powder
- 150g - muscovado sugar
- 300g - home-cooked beetroot* (or use vacuum-sealed)
- 3 eggs - I used medium
- 150 ml - oil
- 2 tsp - vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp - milk
- 50g - dark chocolate, chopped
- 1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a medium 8"cake tin.
- 2. In a medium bowl sift the cocoa powder, flour and baking powder and the sugar and leave to one side.
- 3. Puree or finely grate the beetroot. I grated the beetroot. In a large bowl, whisk together the beetroot, eggs, vanilla and oil. Fold in the remaining cake ingredients to just combine. You can do all of this in a food processor but it might not be as light.
- 4. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake 30-40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- 5. Let it cool 20 minutes in the pan
- 1. Heat the chocolate gently in a double boiler or microwave, mix and cool until spreadable.
- *If using fresh beetroot allow over 45 mins+ to cook. It will need to be cooled before being grated or pureed. So roughly over an hour. This will needed be done before starting the cake.
- If grating I advise wearing plastic gloves over wise you will have very pink coloured hands!!!!
