FEATURE RECIPE
Chocolate and beetroot cake

Chocolate and beetroot cake

This cake is adapted from a recipe in Neil Perry’s The Food I Love. Beetroot contributes to a moist result and is a perfect flavour match for chocolate. You’ll be surprised at just how good this cake tastes.

Serves 10

Cooking Time Prep time 15 mins, cook 1 hr 15 mins (plus cooling)



400 gm   dark chocolate (60% cocoa solids), coarsely chopped
6   eggs, separated
150 gm   caster sugar
200 gm   beetroot (1 large), very finely grated
100 ml   pouring cream, whisked to soft peaks
75 gm   almond meal
For greasing:   butter
To serve:   Dutch-process cocoa powder, double cream or ice-cream


1 Preheat oven to 175C. Melt chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until smooth (3-5 minutes). Set aside.
2 Meanwhile, whisk yolks and two-thirds of sugar in an electric mixer until pale and creamy (3-5 minutes). Add melted chocolate and grated beetroot, stir to combine and set aside.
3 Whisk eggwhite in an electric mixer to soft peaks, add remaining sugar and whisk until smooth and glossy. Fold cream and eggwhite through chocolate mixture, then fold through almond meal, spoon into a 20cm-square watertight cake tin, buttered and lined with baking paper. Place in a roasting pan, pour in enough boiling water to come halfway up sides of tin and bake for 45 minutes, then reduce oven to 150C and bake until cake springs back when lightly pressed (30 minutes). Turn off oven, cool cake in oven for 20 minutes, then run a knife around sides and cool in pan for another 15 minutes before turning out. Dust with cocoa powder and serve with cream or ice-cream.

This recipe is from the June 2010 issue of Australian Gourmet Traveller.

RECIPE Lisa Featherby PHOTOGRAPHY Chris Chen STYLING Lisa Featherby


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