Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge

Today is a happy day and that needs to be celebrated with cake.

Before we get started I need to make my opinion on white chocolate clear – it is an abomination, it is not chocolate and I really do not like it.

I saw this recipe for chocolate beetroot cake and thought it sounded pretty cool.  Then I thought how about I adapt it for white chocolate and then you would really be able to fully enjoy the fabulous beetroot colour.  Plus I’d rather waste white chocolate in a beetroot cake than use the real stuff.

So I got what was left of my beetroot and boiled them for 45 minutes until they were done, when they were cool I rubbed the skin off and took off the tops and tails.  Then I put them into my Braun choppy thing and mulched them until they were all blended into a beetroot mashy thing.

Remember to wear gloves!

Ingredients

30g white chocolate really finely grated – to almost powder
115g plain flour
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
150g caster sugar
240ml canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 whole eggs, beaten
200g plain cooked (vacuum packed) beetroot – not with vinegar – well drained & grated
110g plain white chocolate, chopped into small pieces (rubble rather than dust)

Preheat the oven to 190C.

Sift the flour and baking powder into a large mixing bowl and mix in the powdered white chocolate and sugar. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

Grease a 18.5cm (7-inch) cake tin with butter and line with greaseproof paper. Pour in the cake mix.

Which will kinda look like this, possibly with less children looking in concerned about the bowl full of clotted blood you are turning into a cake.

Bake for 50 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. It will be fairly moist and ‘fudge-y’ in the middle.

Turn out, and cool on a rack. Serve dusted with icing sugar and with a dollop of creme fraiche.

The Verdict – This was an interesting experiment, the colour did not turn out as hoped, there were blotches of purple red between blotches of plain cake colour. Hubby and the girls rather liked it.  I could still taste the foul white chocolate.  The texture was yummy.  I have enough beetroot left that I could make the dark chocolate version. Then again I could also make a chocolate mud cake and slice the beetroot for sandwichs which is really a much better use of chocolate   I also have about 2/3 cup of purply red liquid that was left after boiling the beetroots.  Not sure where I will go with that but it was such a lovely colour I couldn’t bring  myself to throw it out.