Beets are the funniest things. They are a vegetable and like most they can be baked, boiled and pickled to your hearts content. They are wonderful for all natural dyes; I know this because most days I go to work with beet stained hands from peeling one to juice it. Luckily for me that my students are so enthralled with my jam jar of juice that looks suspiciously like jam; that they do not notice my hands. I was never fond of beets growing up, but I would occasionally eat my mother's Harvard beets or the odd pickled one if it magically appeared on my plate, when sitting next to my grandfather at Sunday dinner. Since getting my juicer; beets are now a staple in my vegetable crisper. I tend to buy a big bag from Tap Root Farms, Elmridge Farms or Oak Haven Farms once a week when at the market. When I first got my juicer I told my friend Michelle about the benefits of it and how I could take some of pulps and bake with them. It took me awhile to get around to doing just that, but I did. I started with carrots into muffins and Joyous Health's Raw Carrot Cake Balls and then two weeks ago I decided I was going to make my friend Michelle a chocolate beet cake for her birthday. There was just one problem; I had no idea what the hell I was doing.
I had never made a beet cake before, let alone a gluten free one. So I poked around the trusty internet and came up with nothing. Hmmmm....odd for the internet. Most recipes called for the beets to be cooked and puréed, which I did not want to do. I wanted to use the pulp from my juicer. I noticed that some recipes called for strictly beets and no flour and others called for a small amount of almond meal. I have a recipe for really awesome, fudge like, gluten free brownies which uses cooked rice and a small amount of rice flour so I decided to employ that same theory to my cake; beet pulp and some almond meal. I followed a few other aspects of my brownie recipe to get the chocolatey goodness I desired but modified it to get a cake like batter as opposed to a brownie batter. The end result looked like this.
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| Chocolate Cake and Red Wine....Yum! |
It was the most moist cake I have had in awhile and I used very little sugar to make it. I used the Avocado Pudding that I make when I am having an intense chocolate craving and it worked perfectly as a frosting and takes no refined sugar. It was the best cake, if I do say so myself and I really do. My friend Michelle and her partner were raving about it for days; which is a compliment as Shawn tends to be somewhat picky. I am just glad that it worked out for really having no clue what I was doing and I made it the day that I had them over for dinner. If you want to try your hand at it, give the recipe a try and judge for yourself if this is not the most wonderful chocolate cake ever! Gourmandises Avenue's Intense Cocoa Powder was also a great addition to this recipe
Chocolate Beet Cake
4 Beets Medium/Large
½ cup or 125 g Almond Meal
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1 tsp. Xanthan Gum
1 tsp. Crystal Salt (I have a salt grinder so it is less)
4 eggs Large/Xtra Large
1 ½ cups Coconut Sugar
2 tsps. Vanilla
2 cups Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips (these are gluten free) + 2 tbsp
Cocoa
1/3 cup coconut oil
1. Take beets and process through
a juicer. You need to separate the juice from the pulp. 4 good sized beets
should yield roughly 2 to 2 ½ cups of pulp. Place pulp into a bowl with the
almond meal, baking soda, salt and xanthan gum. Set aside. Place the juice in
the fridge or drink as you desire.
2. Beat the eggs and sugar together
with a mixer until frothy.
3. Melt chocolate chips and
coconut oil together until blended.
4. While the mixer is running,
slowly pour the melted chocolate into the egg and sugar mixture and then turn
the mixer up so that it is completely incorporated and voluminous.
5. Add beet mixture to chocolate
mixture along with the vanilla and mixture until thoroughly combined.
6. Line a 9 inch springform pan with
parchment paper and oil it as well. Pour batter into the pan and place in a 350°
oven for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean.
7. Allow to cool before removing
it from the form.
8. Once it has been removed from
the form and has completely cooled, you should be able to use a serrated knife to
cut it into two layers, if you so choose. I did and used some of the “frosting” in the centre. I made a double batch of the pudding
9. Frost and enjoy.
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| Frosting! |
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| Oh Yeah! We had dinner first!
I will have to give the details about dinner on a later post because it was truly fabulous as well.
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