Eggless Chocolate Beetroot Cake

I don’t remember ever having celebrated Valentine’s Day, not when I was single and definitely not as a couple; the ‘heart’ shape is probably my least favourite and although I have heart shaped cookie cutters in all different sizes, they are probably my least used ones but not everybody thinks like I do and thank god for that; I know a lot of people who go all out and make a ton of effort to celebrate this day of love and you can’t really have a celebration without cake right. So I definitely wanted cake, for those who do rejoice on this day of love and for those of you like me, for whom cake is a regular affair and doesn’t warrant a special day or occasion, everyone wins with cake around.

So as much as I love the drama and complexity of layered cakes, this time around I really just wanted a simple cake with minimal frosting and yet it had to be something I hadn’t tried before so this beetroot chocolate cake seemed to tick all the boxes. This is one of those- dump everything in the food processer- blend and bake kind of recipes, seriously! It’s that simple. It has beetroot, which I promise you won’t taste but it adds a lovely moist texture to the cake; unless you start watching a movie and lose track of time and leave it in the oven too long…it happens, ok! But of course you’re all smarter than I am and such things won’t happen to you and hence you will have a lovely rich, moist chocolate cake without eggs or egg replacements and with the goodness of beetroot. And as much as I love frosting, I really didn’t want anything heavy or complicated for this easy cake so I simply whipped up some cream, sweetened it with icing sugar and added a bit of beetroot puree for the beautiful bright pink colour, I didn’t want a layered cake so I just piped some roses on top; I wanted to keep every element of this cake extremely simple and easy.

I wish you all a wonderful Valentine’s Day; god knows this world needs all the love and compassion it can get. For the hundreds of stories I come across about war, poverty, cruelty and hunger, there will be one soul stirring story about kindness and courage and it gives me so much hope, it makes me think that’s all we really need; to feed one person, help one animal, stand up for one thing that’s right, plant one tree or just smile…happy faces are the most beautiful, and you know what else is beautiful- this cake!

Ingredients

All purpose flour/ maida- 200 grams
Cooked beetroot- 175 grams
Soft brown sugar- 175 grams
Cocoa powder- 50 grams
Vegetable oil- 100 ml
Yogurt/ Dahi- 200 grams
Baking powder- 4 ½ tsp
Salt- ¼ tsp
Vanilla extract- 2 tsp

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180C. Line an 8 inch cake tin with parchment paper and set aside.
In a bowl add the flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt and sugar; stir to combine. In another small bowl add the oil, yogurt and vanilla.
In a food processor add the beetroot and process till it becomes a puree. Add all the other ingredients and blend till you have a smooth batter. Pour the batter in to the prepared tin and bake for 40- 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
Take the cake out of the oven once done and let it rest for 5-10 minutes before unmoulding.
For the frosting, I whipped up some cream, added icing sugar to sweeten and also added some beetroot puree for colour.

Notes

You can cook the beetroot any way you want, I simply boiled it.
The cake can be baked in two tins if you prefer, adjust baking time accordingly.
Add any frosting you like, I went with a simple whipped cream frosting and added some beetroot puree for colour.
Recipe courtesy bbcfood.