Baking a beetroot cake had been on my mind for a long time, almost right from the winter started. But a little clumsiness and frequent re-prioritizing habit of mine kept me away from this lovely cake.
I love baking with fruits and vegetables. Not just they give a depth to the basic flavor of vanilla or chocolate, but they keep them well moist for long enough. It’s a different thing that they don’t last long.
And when I saw Daring Baker’s challenge for this month, I reassured to myself that this time, it has to take priority and there’s noway I am going to miss the challenge this month. Truly speaking, it was easy for me this time, as I knew the recipe already and my half of the job was done.
Ruth from Makey-Cakey was our March 2013 Daring Bakers’ challenge host. She encouraged us all to get experimental in the kitchen and sneak some hidden veggies into our baking, with surprising and delicious results!!
It was Nigella Lawson’s dark chocolate cake with beets, which I fell in love with because of it’s dark, moorish character. Dark and earthy flavor gets mellowed down with a bit of roasting the beets in the oven. Add them to the chocolate cake batter and you help the chocolate cake to accentuate the dark flavor. I am sure you must have got the idea by now, what I am talking about. Nigella’s recipe uses corn oil, which I replaced with my obedient extra virgin olive oil, all because I didn’t have corn oil at hand. It also suggests to frost the cake with chocolate ganache, which I didn’t feel the need of.
Ingredients
175 gm plain flour
2 tbsp baking powder
75 gm cocoa powder
225 gm caster sugar
3 eggs
225 gm raw beetroot
200 ml extra virgin or light olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat the oven at 250 degree Celsius. Wash the beetroots and wrap them individually in aluminium foil and place them in oven for about 25 minutes.
- Let beetroots cool down to room temperature. Once good to handle, peel the beets and puree them in a food processor/liquidizer/blender.
- Preheat the oven to 190 degree Celsius and prepare a 8 inch spring form baking pan.
- Sift the flour, baking powder, caster sugar and cocoa powder together in a bowl and keep aside.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, oil and beetroot puree.
- Fold the flour mixture into the wet mixture. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
- Let the cake cool completely on a wire rack.