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
- Heat oven to 200C.
- 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.
- Lower oven temperature to 180C. Grease and line a round spring-form cake tin (approx. 25cm in size) with baking paper.
- Place dates and water in a small pot. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until dates are mushed up.
- Puree beetroot with yoghurt in a food processor until well combined. Add eggs, sugar and date puree, and blitz until well combined.
- Sieve flour, cocoa powder and baking powder together. Mix in ground almonds.
- Melt chocolate gently in a bowl over simmering water. Stir in oil.
- 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).
- Stand 5-10 minutes before removing from tin.
- 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.