Chocolate Beetroot Cake

This delicious and unusual cake is one from Nigel Slater. It takes a while but it is absolutely worth all the effort and all the washing up!  Please don’t be worried about the beetroot! It cannot be tasted but adds to the colour, the richness and the moistness of this truly scrumptious cake!  Do try it and please leave a comment.

Ingredients

Ingredients for the cake

200g/7oz butter, plus extra for greasing

250g/9oz cooked and peeled beetroot

200g/7oz dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)

4 tbsp hot strong coffee

135g/5oz plain flour

1 heaped tsp baking powder

3 tbsp cocoa powder

5 free-range eggs, separated

190g/6½oz golden caster sugar

crème fraîche, double cream or Cornish ice-cream to serve

How to do it

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Grease a 20cm/8in cake tin with a little butter and line the bottom of the tin with a disc of baking parchment or dust with flour if using a silicone ‘tin’

Cake ‘tins’ greased and dusted with flour

2. Boil the beetroot until soft, cool a little and then skin.  Blend the beetroot in a food processor to a rough purée.

Boiling the beetroots

Beetroot ready to be processed

3. Melt the chocolate in a bowl suspended over a pan of hot water (do not allow the bottom of the bowl to touch the water), then pour in the hot coffee.

Melting the chocolate over hot water

Coffee added

4. Stir in the butter in small pieces and leave to soften. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.

Chunks of butter added to the warm chocolate and coffee mixture

Stirring in the butter

5. Meanwhile, sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa together in a bowl and set aside.

6. Separate the eggs. Whisk the yolks in a bowl until frothy.

Beautiful separated egg yolks

Egg yolks whisked until thickening

7.   Stir the eggs into the chocolate and butter mixture, then fold in the beetroot.

Mixing the egg yolks into the just warm chocolate – I love the colours here!

Adding the pulverised beetroot

8.Whisk the egg whites until still peaks form when the whisk is removed. Fold in the sugar.

Egg whites whisked

9. Fold the sugar and egg whites into the chocolate mixture, then fold in the flour and cocoa mixture.

Mixing a bit of whisked egg white into the chocolate

Egg whites all folded in

Dry ingredients added

All mixed up

10. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

In the ‘tin’

Cooked and cooling

11. Allow to cool in the tin, then serve with crème fraîche or double cream or, best of all for me, a dollop of delicious Cornish ice-cream.

For my Valentine

Delicious served with a dollop of Cornish ice-cream

For our lovely neighbours