A very dear colleague and friend of mine (You know who you are!) once pointed out to me, that in every opera production there is always that colleague: They will bring homemade cake to rehearsal, shamelessly forcing deliciousness on defenceless colleagues without ever having been asked for it. How very annoying.
Well, I am that colleague.
While buying the love of my fellow singers with lushious treats, I always bear in mind, that we are a species with special needs when it comes to food: There are the ones with (actual or imagined) intolerances, the vegans, the weight watchers, the nut phobics, the chocolate avoiders, etc etc
If you try to look after all of them at the same time, you end up serving a steamed carrot. So I settled for a compromise:
Beet Root Chocolate Cake.
This is my favourite cake ever. It is gluten- and lactose-free, it is vegan and it is super-easy to prepare, even when you do not have a fully equipped kitchen at hand. The rich chocolaty texture comes from puréed beet root and cocoa powder only. And if you discreetly ignore the sugar, one could say that this is basically salad!
For those of you resistant to sarcasm: No, I am not seriously suggesting that this is a salad recipe. You will actually be eating cake. Voluptuous, moist, ridiculously delicious chocolate cake. And by the way: you will not taste the beet root as such.
You can imagine, that me being that colleague and bringing this cake to rehearsal annoys my peers so much, that they keep asking for the recipe. So now I am finally giving in and am ready to reveal the secret!
The Recipe:
(I added the number of tbsp for the dry ingredients, because when on the road, you don’t always have kitchen scales at your disposal. Pre-cooked beet root can be found in most supermarkets.)
- 500g cooked beet root
- 170g (17 tbsp) grated almonds
- 100g (10 tbsp) corn starch
- 170g (21 tbsp) cocoa powder
- 340g (23 tbsp) caster sugar
- 2 tsp gluten-free baking powder (cream of tartar)
- 7 EL olive oil
- left-over beet root juice
- icing sugar
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Purée the beet root in a blender. Alternatively, grate it with a cheese grater. Thoroughly mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and stir in the olive oil. Add the grated beet root and mix everything smoothly. Pour the batter into a baking tin, ovenproof dish or muffin cases (any container will do the job, really) and bake it for approximately 40 minutes. Leave the cake to cool completely.
If you want, make a glaze by combining beet root juice and icing sugar to a thick mixture. Drizzle it over the cake and let it set. (Alternatively I have sometimes prepared a topping like butter cream or cream cheese frosting, or added fresh fruit before baking, like bananas or raspberries.)
Keep the cake in the fridge before serving for an ideal consistency.
Most importantly: Enjoy in the company of lovely people!
Pro tip: The cake definitely tastes best when prepared wearing high heels in an adequate color.
(I found the original recipe here…)
S.R.
Rennert redet. 
Ich freu mich, dass das Rezept dich überzeugen konnte :)
LikeLike
(mostly) followed this recipe, but cut the sugar in half (170g) and used ground hazelnuts instead of ground almonds.
observation:
– the texture is amazing – when baked in a spring-form cake pan, it comes out like fudgy brownies.
– on the other hand, this is so outrageously sweet that i have a hard time eating more than a few bites at once. when i try next, i’m going to cut the sugar down again, maybe to 80g.
LikeLike
made this recipe again (sorta).
conclusions/updates are as follows:
1. you can replace the baking powder with yeast, if you add an hours rise-time. the consistency comes out fine
2. this cake will not pass the clean-knife-test after 40 minutes baking, but will firm up when it cools. definitely don’t cook it until the top burns. (oops)
3. cutting the sugar to 50g is too severe.
4. you can repair a burnt top and too-little sugar by putting raspberry jam on top of the cake. delicious.
LikeLike