I set out to make a birthday cake for my daughter, with whom we have hardly spent any birthday celebrations together since she left home for college. As an adult, she has become a capable cook and baker with a sophisticated palate for fine and healthy-ish cuisine. So, which cake should I bake for the special occasion?
There are many instagram-worthy and stunning cakes I could do. However, appearance is only skin-deep. More often than not, I reach for something more delectable with an honest-to-goodness quality to boot. The chocolate beet cake rises to the top of the list. Flavor, texture, moisture and nourishment, you get them all in this cake.
The recipe comes from Tender: A Cook and his Vegetable Patch by Nigel Slater. By any measure, this is not an ordinary cook book. It’s a hefty book of over 600 pages and 400 recipes exploring 29 vegetables. Contents alone may not be enough to make the cut. I prefer to test and collect unique and timeless recipes from accomplished cooks and writers. In Tender, the passion and brilliance of Nigel Slater comes through — both as a cook and a writer. This is a book I could spend hours upon hours curled up in a comfy chair while imagining the backyard patch blooming with seasonal vegetables ready to be transformed.
Who’d combine root vegetable, like beets, in a chocolate cake?
I’m partial toward chocolate cakes, especially using dark chocolate with 70% cacao. Anytime you can add veggies for moisture, nourishment and flavor, it is a win. I like carrot and zucchini cakes, but beet chocolate is a league above, in my opinion. You don’t need to add spices to jazz up the cake. Simply use the incredible dual of the best dark chocolate and the freshest beets (with leaves on), and closely follow the recipe. There is nothing quite like the resulting beet chocolate cake. Unfailingly earthy, yet otherworldly!
Don’t know why there are not more beet chocolate cake recipes out there. I guess the process is more elaborate than the everyday bake. Meanwhile, the pinkish tone of beets may not be for everyone.
- First, cook the beets and purée them into a beet paste.
- In another bowl, melt the chocolate.
- Add the espresso and butter. That becomes a rich chocolate ganache.
- Next, separate the eggs into yolks and whites.
- The yolks are folded in the chocolate ganache and the beets.
- The whites are whipped to stiff peaks.
- Lastly, combine the two and fold in the dry ingredients, as weightlessly as you can. Now you get a thick chocolate beet batter ready to bake.
- Serve with crème frâiche and poppy seeds, reminiscent of the dollop of sour cream in your borscht.
For a smaller and equally astonishingly version of this cake, try the beet chocolate bouchons.
Nigel Slater's Extremely Moist Chocolate-Beet Cake
Ingredients
- 8 ounces / 250 g fresh beets
- 7 ounces / 200 g fine dark chocolate (70%)
- 4 tablespoons hot espresso
- 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons / 200 g butter
- 1 cup + 2 tablespoons / 135 g all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
- 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
- 5 eggs
- Scant 1 cup / 190 g superfine sugar
- Crème frâiche and poppy seeds, to serve
Instructions
Lightly butter an 8-inch springform cake pan and line the base with a round of baking parchment. Heat the oven to 350° F.
COOK THE BEETS: Cook the beets, whole and unpeeled, in boiling unsalted water. Depending on their size, they will be tender within 30 to 40 minutes. Young ones may take slightly less. Drain them, let them cool under running water, then peel them, slice off their stem and root, and process in a blender or food processor until a coarse purée.
MELT THE CHOCOLATE: Melt the chocolate, broken into small pieces, in a small bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Don’t stir.
ADD ESPRESSO AND BUTTER: When the chocolate looks almost melted, pour the hot espresso over it and stir once. Cut the butter into small pieces—the smaller the better—and add to the melted chocolate. Push the butter down under the surface of the chocolate with a spoon (as best you can) and leave to soften.
SIFT THE DRY INGREDIENTS: Sift together the flour, baking powder and cocoa.
SEPARATE THE EGGS: Separate the eggs, putting the whites in a large mixing bowl. Stir the yolks together.
ADD EGG YOLKS TO THE MELTED CHOCOLATE: Now, working quickly but gently, remove the bowl of chocolate from the heat and stir until the butter has melted into the chocolate. Let sit for a few minutes, then stir in the egg yolks. Do this quickly, mixing firmly and evenly so the eggs blend into the mixture.
FOLD IN THE BEETS: Fold the beets in the chocolate mixture.
WHISK THE EGG WHITES: Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then fold in the sugar.
COMBINE THE CHOCOLATE MIXTURE WITH THE EGG WHITES: Firmly but gently, fold the beaten egg whites and sugar into the chocolate mixture. A large metal spoon is what you want here; work in a deep, figure-eight movement but take care not to over-mix.
FOLD IN THE DRY INGREDIENTS: Lastly, fold in the flour and cocoa.
BAKE THE CAKE: Transfer quickly to the prepared cake pan and put in the oven, decreasing the heaT immediately to 325° F. Bake for 40 minutes. The rim of the cake will feel spongy, the inner part should still wobble a little when gently shaken. Test with a cake tester or toothpick too—if it is still gooey in the center, continue baking just until moist crumbs cling to the tester.
Set the cake aside to cool (it will sink a tad in the center), loosening it around the edges with a thin icing spatula after half an hour or so. It is not a good idea to remove the cake from its pan until it is completely cold.
SERVE: Serve in thick slices, with crème fraîche and poppy seeds.
Notes
Adapted from Tender: A Cook and his Vegetable Patch by Nigel Slater
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