Chocolate Beetroot Cake
Serves 8
250g beetroot
200g dark chocolate, in small pieces
4tbs hot espresso
200 butter
135g plain flour
1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
5 eggs
190g caster sugar
crème fraiche and poppy seeds to serve
Lighly butter a 20cm springform cake tin and line the base with baking paper. Set the oven to 180C.
Cook the beetroot, whole and unpeeled, in a pot of boiling and salted water. Large beetroot will take up to 40mins, small beetroot about 20mins. Check tenderness by piercing with a knife. Drain them and leave to cool under running water. Slice off the stem and root and then peel them. The skin should slide off easily. Blitz them in a blender to a rough puree.
Melt the chocolate in a small bowl resting over a pot of simmering water. Leave to melt without stirring. When the chocolate looks almost melted, pour the hot coffee over it and stir to combine. Cut the butter into small cubes and add to the melted chocolate and leave to soften.
Sift together the flour, baking powder and cocoa. Separate the eggs, putting the whites in a large mixing bowl. Stir the yolks together.
Remove the bowl of chocolate from the heat and stir until the butter has melted into the chocolate. Leave for a few minutes then stir in the egg yolks. Do this quickly and mix firmly and evenly so the yolks blend in to the mixture. Fold in the beetroot.
Whisk the egg whites till stiff, then fold in the sugar. Firmly but tenderly fold in the beaten egg whites into the chocolate mixture using a large metal spoon; work in a deep figure of eight motion being careful not to overmix and lose the air from the egg whites. Lastly fold in the flour and cocoa.
Transfer to the prepared cake tin and put in the oven, turning the heat down to 160C. Bake for 40 minutes. The rim of the cake will feel spongy and the inner part should wobble a little when shaken.
Leave it to cool where it will sink in the middle. Loosen it around the edges with a palette knife after half an hour or so. Serve in thick slices with the crème fraiche and poppy seeds.
Adapted from the person who I'd most like to be my host at his house, Nigel Slater’s Tender Volume 1.
