Super Sloppy Chocolate Cake with Beetroot

I am normally not a big chocolate lover and baking belongs also rather to the peripheral areas of my culinary work. This cake, however, was dying to be baked. Hidden between all the ingenious vegetable dishes in the book Tender by Nigel Slater is quite inconspicuous in the chapter “Beet Root” this recipe. The content of the cake has it in itself! Since the book is only available in English, here is the German translated version.

• 250 g beet

I boil the beet unpeeled in about 40 minutes until soft. Then peel (rubber gloves!) and grate with the fine vegetable grater to a coarse mush.

• 135 g flour
• one heaped teaspoon baking powder
• 3 tablespoons dark cocoa powder

mix and set aside for later.

• 5 eggs
• 190 g raw cane sugar

Separate the eggs and beat the egg whites until stiff. Slowly beat the sugar into the egg whites until you have a creamy mixture.

• 200 g dark chocolate (70%)
• 4 tablespoons of espresso
• 200 g butter

The chocolate melts broken into pieces in a water bath. Do not stir, just let it melt. Then pour the espresso over it and stir once. Finally, add the chopped butter and press it under the surface so that it melts.

Now comes the final assembly. The ingredients should be added to the chocolate mixture quietly, but steadily, so that everything combines perfectly.

Remove the pot from the water bath, let it cool a little. Then add the egg yolk and mix well. Now add the beet, then the beaten egg white. As always, don’t stir this vigorously, but lift the egg whites into the mixture. Finally, I add the flour mixture and fold it in as well. The batter has more of a muffin batter than a real sponge batter, it is just mixed so that all the ingredients are no longer separate.

The dough now goes into a greased and coated 20 cm springform pan. Nigel Slater makes still baking paper under it, I leave it out and have thanks to the coating also later no problems when taking out.

Then into the oven, which is preheated to 180°. After the cake is in, I turn the temperature down to 160° and leave the cake in the oven for forty minutes. It was probably a bit too much baking powder with me, the dough rises well and almost runs over the edge. But then it comes to its senses and stops just in time. Later the cake collapses a little in the middle, it should according to its inventor.

You take the cake out, even if it’s still all wobbly in the middle! I didn’t really dare and left it in the oven for five minutes longer. But then it’s due.

I don’t open the pan until it’s completely cooled. Cutting it is not so easy, but the cake holds, although it is very crumbly at the top of the edge. In the middle it is rather moist and heavy due to the beet, so the pieces hold together.

And I’m in chocolate heaven! Topped with a mixture of.

• creme fraiche
• blue poppy seeds

that is spread on top of the cake pieces (everyone does this for themselves) the cake is a great result! Thanks Nigel!

beetroot chocolate cake with sour cream on top and poppy seeds