Chocolate fudge cake

Healthy recipes Beetroot chocolate fudge cake recipe

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Date Published:
01/11/2007

This beetroot chocolate fudge cake will hit you between the eyes and knock you out. The beauty of this recipe is that it is incredibly rich and deep in flavour, yet uses hardly any flour or fat. I promise you that a little will go a long way.

The beetroot is not a touch of madness - it actually provides the gungy texture that makes a great fudge cake, and some natural pink sweetness too.

Serves 16
Ready in 2 1/2 hours

Ingredients

The cake

  • 250g good-quality dark chocolate
  • 3 medium free-range eggs
  • 250g light muscovado sugar
  • 1 vanilla pod, cut in half lengthways and seeds scraped out
  • 2 tablespoons maple syrup
  • 2 tablespoons clear honey
  • 40g self-raising flour
  • 40g plain flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 25g cocoa powder
  • 50g ground almonds
  • 250g raw beetroot, peeled and finely grated
  • 100ml strong black coffee
  • 30ml sunflower oil

Nutritional Information

Per serving:
305 calories

The topping

  • 150g good-quality dark chocolate
  • 3 tablespoons strong black coffee
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
  • 3 tablespoons clear honey

Method: How to cook beetroot chocolate fudge cake

1. Preheat a conventional oven to 160ºC, or a fan-assisted one to 140ºC. With the help of a brush and a tiny bit of sunflower oil, grease the surface of a round 20cm diameter by 8cm high loose-bottomed tin and set aside.

2. Melt the chocolate gently in a bowl over a pan of simmering water until all dissolved, then set aside to cool.

3. In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar, the scraped-out vanilla seeds, the maple syrup and the honey for three minutes with an electric hand whisk until pale and quite fluffy.

4. Gently fold in the flours, bicarbonate of soda, salt, cocoa and ground almonds until fully incorporated.

5. Using some kitchen paper, dab the grated beetroot thoroughly to remove some of the excess moisture. Fold in the beetroot, cooled chocolate, coffee and oil with the help of a spatula until thoroughly mixed together.

Tips

1. Leave yourself plenty of time to make this cake because it is quite a lengthy recipe.

2. The cake is best eaten when it is still slightly warm. It is also really important to ice it at the last minute or the icing can lose its shine.

However, it would freeze beautifully providing you put it away before icing. Simply defrost when needed and ice at the last minute.

6. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and cook in the middle of the oven for 1 hour 30 minutes. After this time, cover the cake with foil and bake for another 30 minutes.

7. Test the cake by inserting a skewer into the centre to see if it comes out clean (although this cake is so moist that even when the cake is fully cooked, the skewer comes out looking slightly messy). Leave to cool on a wire rack.

8. To make the fudge topping, melt the chocolate gently in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, then remove from the heat and add the coffee and the vanilla essence.

9. At this stage the chocolate will seize up slightly, but it will relax back once you add the honey and gently mix in.

10. Set aside to cool for 15 minutes before icing the cake. Cut the cake through the middle and ice it in the centre and on all sides.

11. Decorate the top with whatever you fancy, but I like using pink flowers, such as tulips or roses, which I plant into the cake with a bit of stem left on.

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Comments

  1. The cake was excellent, though I don't think it needs anywhere near two hours in the oven. Not at 160 at least. Mine was lovely in under an hour. Cooked enough, but still very moist. I rather think it would have burnt had I cooked it longer. The topping I felt was a real must with it. But boy-oh-boy that is a very rich cake. For ingredients, I skipped vanilla pods and used vanilla essence, and just used regular brown sugar instead of muscovado. And just used made-up instant coffee too. I was probably lean on the weight of the beets after they were peeled and the moisture gone too. I only had three, but they were particularly lovely sweet ones though. But all in all, the cake was lovely warm with a little ice-cream and everyone (...well anyone I could convince to taste it) liked it. I wouldn't consider it diet really though with that amount of chocolate and sweeteners. But you definitely only need a little bit. There is a different flavour to it, but I rather liked it. I'm interested to see if how it will taste by tomorrow.
    Posted by enozym on 05/10/2009 17:14:50
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  2. We, again, followed this recipe to the letter and it was completely disgusting. Went through all the rigmarole and all it ended up tasting of was Beetroot! We honestly cannot figure out where we went wrong - but ended up binning it. Good luck if you choose to give it a shot, but be warned!
    Posted by Vicky O on 01/08/2009 19:38:22
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  3. When you mention ''3 tbsp strong black coffee'' do you mean ground coffee or diluted coffee?
    Posted by Chocolatedestroyer on 28/07/2009 18:18:04
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  4. Love beetroot in all recipes, including cakes. HOWEVER I am amazed that you condone 'planting' flowers into the top of the cake by their stem - particularly tulips wich are not edible (in fact poisonous). No flowers - even sugar ones - should be pushed into the surface of a cake.
    Posted by Cakelady on 04/05/2009 16:19:23
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  5. Can I use cooked beetroot?
    Posted by litalush80 on 17/04/2009 09:45:30
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  6. I have made this at least 5 times now (and keep looking for more ocassions)! It has been a winner every time, even when I dropped it and had to scoop it into a container... Totally delicious and worth all the effort in making it!!!
    Posted by Kate on 06/04/2009 15:33:58
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  7. Can i use this recipe as muffins howclong would they take to cook
    Posted by Heather on 09/02/2009 21:12:34
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  8. I made this cake this afternoon and it is very nice, we couldnt wait for it to cool and it was very nice warm. The kids even had seconds... i couldnt be would of if i wasnt 'dieting' - not that u need seconds, it is very rich. I could could only get cooked beets but worked out well with them. I have a fan assisted oven and although the receipe said 140 i had the oven lower as I was concerned it would burn, and after all the expensive choc and vanilla pods i didnt want to do that. So all in all good... but it did take a long time to prepare and cook so wouldnt it just be easier to eat a normal choc cake and then spend the time saved burning it off??
    Posted by Heather on 07/02/2009 21:35:37
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  9. i want to make this cake into individual muffins. how much would i need to reduce the cooking time to?
    Posted by Reggie on 23/01/2009 15:08:08
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  10. This is now my friends fav cake!! And apparently is very nice with cr?me fraiche (but I am intolerant to lactose! so I have not tasted) I have to say I have ended up mostly cooking it with cooked beetroot and knocking 30 mins off the cooking time to stop it getting burnt (don't forget to cover 1/2 way through cooking). I have converted this recipe to Gluten and wheat free as I an intolerant - Replace flour with (both SR and plain) GF plain alternative, instead of 1/4tsp of Bicarb of soda put in 1tsp and after mixing everything together fold in an extra (beaten to peaks) egg white directly before placing in the oven. Good Luck all this is a VERY yummy cake! Hannaxxx
    Posted by Hanna on 10/12/2008 17:50:06
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  11. Right, i just spent 3 hours in the kitchin making the god expencive 'healthy' cake as i'm on a diet i thought it would be a nice but not too naughty treat. I followed the recipe step by step exactly and the cake turned out burnt and vile we could'nt physically eat it! did anyone seriously like it?
    Posted by Zoe on 21/11/2008 23:38:43
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  12. cake recipe
    Posted by Sasha on 21/10/2008 08:55:28
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