Dark chocolate, date and beetroot cake

Tamara West

This is a very moist, almost fudgy chocolate cake. The dark chocolate, earthy beetroot and dark caramel notes from the dates result in a richly flavoured cake that is not overly sweet.

Ingredients

2 medium	Beetroot, about 320-340g (Main)
¾ cup	Thick greek yoghurt
4	Eggs
¾ cup	White sugar
2 cups	Dates, approx 350g, roughly chopped (Main)
¾ cup	Water
1 cup	Plain flour
¼ cup	Cocoa powder, good quality
1 tsp	Baking powder
1 cup	Ground almonds, blanched
150 g	Dark chocolate, good quality (I used Whittakers Dark Ghana), broken into pieces (Main)
¾ cup	Oil, neutral or nut (canola, grapeseed, macadamia, walnut)

Icing

100 g	Dark chocolate, good quality, broken into pieces
1 tsp	Oil, neutral or nut

Directions

1. Heat oven to 200C.
2. Wrap each whole beetroot individually in tinfoil and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer goes through the middle with no resistance. Unwrap beetroot and allow to cool before scraping of their skins. Roughly chop.
3. Lower oven temperature to 180C. Grease and line a round spring-form cake tin (approx. 25cm in size) with baking paper.
4. Place dates and water in a small pot. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until dates are mushed up.
5. Puree beetroot with yoghurt in a food processor until well combined. Add eggs, sugar and date puree, and blitz until well combined.
6. Sieve flour, cocoa powder and baking powder together. Mix in ground almonds.
7. Melt chocolate gently in a bowl over simmering water. Stir in oil.
8. In a large bowl, combine flour, melted chocolate and beetroot mixtures. Fold together with a large metal spoon until well combined. Do not over-mix. Pour mixture into prepared cake tin and bake for 60 minutes until cake springs bake when lightly pressed (the cake is quite fudgy so a skewer inserted into the middle will not come out clean).
9. Stand 5-10 minutes before removing from tin.
10. To make the icing, melt chocolate gently in a bowl over simmering water. Stir in oil. Ice cake with chocolate when cool. Serve with a dollop of Greek yoghurt, ice-cream or creme fraiche.