Frankly, the concept of a “healthy cake” can seem slightly stomach-turning. Any vague attempt to reduce sugar intake/ eat less chocolate/ not eat so many cinnamon buns can really be quite tricky. However, there has to be a time where stuffing your face with chocolate becomes less of a nagging ‘good idea’ (Circa Mother’s Voice), and more of a personal priority, to keep you feeling energised and light as a cloud. Sometimes you fancy a little something less guilt-inducing and a little more, shall we say, virtuous.
However, in alternative cooking, ‘healthy’ often seems to be a by-word for ‘obscure’. Whilst this is great if you can afford pomegranate molasses and all the medjool dates you can stomach, it often doesn’t seem that accessible for students attempting to scrape by on a tight budget.
But do not fear! Without substitution for obscure ingredients and with the priority being flavour, we’ve squirrelled away a cake recipe which doesn’t leave you feeling like a slug and may just tick off one of your five-a-day in the process.
Here’s a really easy Beetroot Chocolate Cake.
Ingredients:
1 large beetroot, cooked (you can do this by placing it in the microwave for 4 minutes in a safe container with a cm of water in the bottom)
200g plain flour
100g cocoa powder
1tbsp baking powder
250g caster sugar
3 eggs
2tsp
200ml sunflower oil
100g dark chocolate
Method:
Turn on your oven to 180 degrees.
Peel your beetroot if you haven’t already done so. You can then either grate it into a large bowl, or if you have a food processor blitz in there until it’s a similar consistency.
Add all the other ingredients minus the oil and the chocolate. Mix well with a wooden spoon.
When completely combined with no lumps, pour in the oil in a steady stream whilst stirring quickly.
Add the chocolate – I like to leave it quite chunky so that it doesn’t melt completely in the oven, so the artistic license is up to you.
Pour the whole mixture into a loaf tin (or any other cake tin of your choice) and bake for around an hour, until a skewer comes out relatively clean. Beetroot has a lot of moisture in it so it’s unlikely to bake to the point of no return.
Eat with crème fraiche, cream or ice cream if you have some handy and are feeling fancy.
Top tip:
Beetroot cake tastes amazing toasted for breakfast as well – if it’s a little too crumbly for the toaster then set your grill on high and pop it under for a few minutes. This is great with Greek yoghurt and a chopped banana to keep you full until lunchtime!
By Flo Williams.