Slow Food Cape Town CSA

RECIPE OF THE WEEK: BEETROOT CAKE

Posted by Kate | Filed under Recipes, Winter

This is a rare sweet recipe for vegetables. The idea – a carrot cake, only made with beetroot – is Jamie Oliver’s. It produces a moist, shocking pink cake, without a drop of food colouring! Perfect served with a cup of tea.

This is smaller than a normal cake, so I make it in a small loaf tin, or in a single shallow round cake tin.

260g COOKED peeled beetroot, cooled

70g olive oil

160g cake flour

85g polenta or mielie meal

2 eggs, separated

120g liquid honey

1 tsp baking powder

2 TBS orange juice

tiny sprinkle cinnamon

1.5cm piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped

1 pinch salt

Preheat your oven to 180C. Butter a small/medium loaf tin, or a shallow round layer cake tin. Dust with a little flour.

Mash the beetroot to a puree, or puree in a food processor. Mix with the olive oil, ginger, honey, orange juice and egg yolks. In another bowl, mix the flour, polenta,baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Add this to the beetroot mixture, and mix until combined.

In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff. Fold into the cake batter until barely combined. Pour the batter into your baking tin. Bake for 35-45 minutes, until spongy. A cake tester or toothpick should come out without any gooey batter on it.

Allow to cool before turning out. You can serve it with some lightly sweetened, whipped cream, mascarpone or creme fraiche. For a more festive feel, I cut it in half and sandwich it together again with cream cheese icing: beat together 100g cream cheese (low fat or full cream), 80g softened butter, icing sugar to taste and a squeeze of lemon juice. Try not to eat it directly out of the bowl!

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Comments (1) | July 13th, 2009