I don’t usually go around posting recipes to the internet as it seems a bit redundant given how many cooking and recipe websites there are out there.  However, recently I promised someone a copy of this old recipe that I had inherited from some chefs I knew years ago and now of course my drug addlepated brain can’t remember who I was supposed to email it to, so I’m hoping this catches whomever it was that was supposed to get it :S   (That made more sense in my head).   So yeah… Beetroot cake.  I know it sounds disgusting but chocolate lovers assure me that it’s to die for… so bear with me here.

First – a warning:  This is an extremely rich chocolate cake which means… 1) it is really, really bad for you…I mean you can almost feel those arteries hardening as you read the ingredients list… and 2) seeing that the dominant flavour is chocolate – I don’t like it.  It would however satisfy any chocoholic or mud cake afficionado and has gone down a treat on the few occasions that I’ve bothered to make it.

BEETROOT CAKE

Cake ingredients:
2 cups of cooked beetroot, mashed
2 and 1/2 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
2 cups of sugar
1 and 1/2 cups of ‘salad oil’
4 eggs
1/2 cup of cocoa
2 teaspoons of vanilla
2 teaspoons of salt

Icing ingredients:
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup butter or margarine
3 cups icing sugar
milk

Cake method:
Mix together sugar, oil, vanilla and eggs thoroughly.
Sift flour, soda, salt and cocoa.
Alternately add flour and mashed beetroots and to oil/egg mixture.
Place in a prepared 23x33cm cake tin,
Bake at 180C for 45 minutes

Icing method:
Combine peanut butter and butter.
Add icing sugar.
Blend in just enough milk to make a good spreading consistency.