No 15 - Chocolate Beetroot Brownie

Chocolate Beetroot Brownie

Now this is a brownie worthy of the name.  I love beetroot; it’s one of my favourite vegetables.  It makes great  soup (and not just borscht – perhaps when I’ve finished this baking challenge I’ll just put some of my favourite recipes on here, like beetroot and coconut soup).  I preserve it sliced in a vinegar brine and eat loads in cheese sandwiches (my favourite). And it’s easy to grow if your garden has clay soil.

I spent a year in Denmark a few years ago working in a restaurant kitchen.  Beetroot (rødbeder) is a staple in their food world and I learned preparations and uses for beetroot I never imagined before.

Unfortunately for beetroot, there is nothing subtle or secretive about it; cook it and bright pink splotches appear in every part of the kitchen.  Nothing provides so much evidence of what you’ve splashed and what you have touched as beetroot does.  (Mind you I don’t mind getting my hands in it to skin the cooked beetroot so I might be a bit messier than the averagely stain conscious person).

Before this weeks baking, some beetroot had been languishing in my fridge for a few weeks while I psyched myself up to this recipe.  It turned out to be superbly easy.  I didn’t use the food processor – I flung the cooked skinned beetroot in a blender with all the eggs together and whipped up a delightful pink egg nog.

The rest went by the recipe except that I used plain white flour instead of rice flout (of which I had none).

http://www.riverford.co.uk/feed/in:recipes/chocolate-beetroot-brownies/

This website is so good I have put a link to it in the ‘Try this….’ box of links over there on the right…->

No one spotted the beetroot without being told.  It’s a beautifully moist, smooth brownie.  There’s a hint of beetroot taste to those in the know (well to me anyway), but I had to tell.  Well you know what beetroot does it you eat it.  Even cooked in a cake the pink dye passes  through your kidneys.  So Louise and I figured that knowing they’d consumed beetroot might provide the answer to a puzzle for the cake-testers at work.