Daring Baker - March 2013: Hidden Veggies!

Ruth from Makey-Cakey was our March 2013 Daring Bakers’ challenge host. She encouraged us all to get experimental in the kitchen and sneak some hidden veggies into our baking, with surprising and delicious results!

I don't have children of my own, but I have nieces and nephew that I'm in charge of every once in a while, and let me tell you, preparing lunch for them is not an easy task... They are really picky, seem to steer away from most vegetables and anything that looks healthy. Sometimes a recipe they liked a few weeks back is all of the sudden not good anymore... go figure!

I'm pretty sure I wasn't this difficult as a child, or maybe that's how I want to remember. But I'm very happy I didn't grew up on fast food and frozen ready made meals. So I really liked this month challenge, it gave me a chance to sneek in a few extra vegetables and making it to a game of "guess what the secret ingredient is".

I've made a chocolate cake with raw beetroot that was interesting in texture and taste, even if it won't be my standard chocolate cake, it's definetly worth a try. I also made some kind of pumpkin brioche called Broinhas de Abobora, that I liked very much and will share in my next post. Otherwise I invite you all to check the best vegetable cake there is (in my humble opinion) which is the swiss carrot cake! Still my favorit one.

Beetroot Chocolate Cake with White Chocolate Ganache (based on a recipe from Cook yourself thin)

250gr of Dark Chocolate (60%)
3 Eggs
250gr of Brown Sugar
1 Vanilla pod
60ml of Honey
80gr of Flour
1 Tablespoon of Baking Powder
a Pinch of Salt
a Pinch of Bicarb
25gr of Cocoa Powder
50gr of Ground Almonds
250gr raw beetroot, peeled and finely grated
100ml of Tea
30ml of sunflower oil
180gr of White Chocolate
100ml of Cream
Poppy Seeds

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and flour a round cake tin.

Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie (over simmering water) and set aside.

In a standmixer, beat the eggs and the sugar with the seeds of the vanilla pod, add the honey, mix for a couple of minutes. Than add the dry ingredients (flour, bicarb, salt, cocoa and ground almonds).

After you dried out the beetroot with some kitchen towel, you can fold them into your previous batter, adding also the cooled chocolate, the (cold) tea and the oil with a spatula.

When everything is folded in properly, pour it into your cake tin and cook it in the oven for about 1 hour. Leave it to cool completly.

In a sauce pan, break the white chocolate into little pieces and heat it up gently on a low heat with the cream, stir with a wooden spoon to keep an eye on it. When the chocolate it melted, take it off the heat and pour it on your cooled cake. Sprinkle with poppy seeds.

I'd advice you to make this cake one day ahead of time, as it seems better to me the day after.