h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Chocolate beet cake - A87912912
Author: paulh, not fond of Lord Mudpants - U176638


"Chocolate Beet Cake"

DRY INGREDIENTS

1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 or 4 tbsps of cocoa powder
3 or 4 tbsps of chocolate bits
1 and 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
3 tsps of nuts [almonds, pecans, walnuts, etc.] ground in a blender with
2 tbsps of rolled oats
2 tsps of baking powder
3 tsps of powdered milk
1/2 cup of raisins

WET INGREDIENTS

1 cup of water
1 tsp of vanilla
2 peeled apples, diced [minus cores]
1 or 2 beets, peeled and diced

INSTRUCTIONS

Mix the spices together and put in mixing bowl. Then add the other dry ingredients and mix thoroughly

Put the water in a blender. Dice one of the apples, add to blender, and puree it. Then dice the second apple, add, and puree. Then dice the beet(s), add, and puree.

Finally, pour the resulting liquid from the blender into the mixing bowl and mix thoroughly with the dry ingredients. Put the resulting batter into an oiled baking pan (4" X 8"], put the pan in the oven, and bake for an hour at 350 degrees.

Sounds, er, unusual. Alas, I can't try it, having celiac disease. I'll pass it along to the farm, though!

Could you write an introductory paragraph or two about the cake? Either some brief comment about where the recipe comes from, what season it's popular in, or some other titbit to whet the reader's interest?

Hmmmmm

Basically, I happened onto this because of my gardening endeavors. I wanted a reliable supply of greens for consumption during the Summer, but it seemed nice to also have an end product for the Winter. Beets have delicious greens, and so-so roots. The lightbulb went on in my head when I conceived of combining a supply of beets with a taste for chocolate cake. Magically it worked!

So you are using fresh beets, not cans or jars. Might be worth mentioning, I was wondering.

F S

As for seasonality, it's definitely a recipe for late Fall or Winter. I have more beets growing in my garden right now. Beets are just the best plants I grow.

I presume this will work with white mangel-wurzells (sugar beets) as well as red beets.

Few can tell the two apart on a blindfolded taste test.

I've never tasted them, so I don't know, but it sounds reasonable.

mangel-wurzells (or sugar beets) except that they're white and a larger, more robust plant, are otherwise identical in flavor to regular beets cooked; sliced fresh, for vegetables julienne, they taste like apple.

This recipe sounds delicious

As I'm a novice cook, though, I had a couple of questions:

"Mix the spices together" - I know cinnamon is a spice, but are you counting the cocoa powder *and* chocolate bits, or is it just the cocoa powder you're mixing with the cinnamon?

When does the vanilla get added?

Thanks for explaining more about how your recipe came about - good indeed to have a variety of recipes for fresh garden produce, not just pickling

I notice also that your recipe uses wholewheat and has no added loose sugar, so that would be good for you to mention in an introductory paragraph, too

This recipe is going to be an asset to the Guide, as is your A87805614 Fruit Cocktail Cake

Thanks, Sasha. This is from a collection of a couple dozen cake recipes. I saved effort by copying sections of some recipes when they were similar. Most recipes had more than one spice, so I got in the habit of saying "spices," which would obviously be incorrect here. I can tweak that.

I use whole wheat flour, but I could change that to allow white flour instead. it might change the texture, though. The beets, apples, and chocolate chips are all sweet. I think they make the cake sweet enough without the need for additional sugar.

Okay, I've made the suggested improvements.

Thanks everybody.

Excellent

I've not encountered wholewheat flour in a cake, so that is pleasing to me - those touches set your recipe apart from other ones, so thank you for sharing it with us

If people ant to use canned beets, I'm not sure what amounts to recommend. I should probably say *something* about it, as many people won't have access to fresh beets, but I'm not sure what to say.

I'm not sure what a beet is. Is it the same as a beetroot? This is a round root that produces an extremely strong purple colour.

Yes. They are one and the same, though "beet" can be more general, referring to the whole plant.

Ditto the more robust sugar beets, despite the extra large oblong white root, same species, different breed.

Beets also come in carotene orange as well as anthoxanthin red or purple.

(Anthoxanthin is an ubiquitous, naturally occuring plant coloration that covers the rainbow in color depending on Ph.

With neutral Ph, its purple.

Its the base for litmus paper.)

Just reading this again, I had another question:

"3 tsps of nuts [almonds, pecans, walnuts, etc.] ground in a blender with"

Do you grind the nuts with the oats and raisins, or just the oats here?

This recipe sounds interesting and well worth trying.

If you use fresh beetroot, do you need to cook them first? Most recipes I've come across say that beetroot should be roasted for 40 minutes or more, or boiled in water for about the same time. I cheat and put mine in a bowl of water and put them in the microwave on high.

Where you've said 'cups, can you add the metric equivalent please.

Grind the nuts with just the oats.

I don't recommend cooking the beets first. Roasting them will make them too hot to handle. Not roasting them seems not to affect the taste of the cake in the slightest.

250 milliliters would work fine as the metric equivalent of one cup. Or 236 if you want to be more exact.

Yes, as the beets are diced and pureed, they would cook faster than if they were whole, so that makes sense that you don't need to roast them first