Chocolate beet cake

Pudding. That's all I want to eat these days. Rice pudding, tapioca pudding, maybe even bread pudding. I even made a cornstarch based vanilla pudding, but it was too starchy for me. I like custardy puddings best, and would be quite happy with baked custard and more crème caramel. So, maybe I'll be back in a few days with a pudding, but for now I've made you a cake. The quest for beet cake started back in October when I first moved. My mother gave me a large bag of beets and I was looking for ways to use them. I made one, but wasn't completely happy with it, so the draft of that post languished until the other day when I had more beets to use up. Yes, they were from my mother again. She likes to send me home with iron-rich foods. Thanks, Mom.

Oh, and guess what? I got a brand-new stove! I got home the other day, and there it was. So far, so good. The temperature is spot-on, and it goes up to 500℉, which is 100℉ hotter than my old oven, and means I can make great pizza and bread again. In fact, I've already made pizza, but I ate it all up, alongside some celery soup, which is my new favourite soup. My old oven was probably donated to a museum, or maybe you can see one just like it on an old episode of Happy Days. I'm hoping the new stove shakes me out of my blog ennui. I just don't feel like making much these days, and can never find the time to take pictures or write about what I make. Work has been busy and daylight is hard to find. Also, puddingy things are not the most photogenic desserts, at least not in my hands.

Anyway, I went looking for a beet cake recipe online, and found a few, but none of them were quite right. One used 2½ cups of oil for 2-9" layers, which seemed like an awful lot. Another one used chocolate, which I didn't have on hand (it's also in Portuguese, but that's not a big problem: I speak food rather well). The third one used just a little chocolate and spice, so that wasn't it either. Still another one used raw beets, but I had already roasted mine, and had no intention of buying more. So, slightly disappointed that I didn't have a Goldilocks moment, I decided to wing it. That's not as hard as you might think, especially if you understand the interactions between ingredients and what purpose they serve in a baked good. Some folks, especially non-bakers, think of baking as chemistry, where everything has to be just so for it to work. That's just not true! You may not get a prize-winner on your first try, but something made with lots of butter, sugar, eggs and flour will only rarely be a total fail. Here's how I went about developing this recipe:

• I wanted to use oil, as in a carrot cake, for moistness. I also didn't think the taste of butter would come through with all the cocoa and the beets. Oh, and I had bought 2.5 litres for the doughnut challenge
• I had no chocolate, only cocoa
• I was having trouble getting a fine enough puree of beets on their own, so I knew I needed to add something else to the food processor. Buttermilk and cocoa make a great cake, so I went with that. And I had found a litre of it in the back of the fridge. Expiry date today!
• I like brown sugar in chocolate cakes, so I used it
• Buttermilk and brown sugar are acidic, meaning that baking soda would be a good addition. I also added baking powder. Think of it as leavening insurance
• Usually when I make up recipes I don't measure anything, but I did this time. I used my scale because it was easier to see the proportions of ingredients. Sorry, no cup measurements this time!

Go ahead, pile on the whipped cream! You're having beets for dessert.

Chocolate Beet Cake (Updated, based on my friend Judy's results and my 3rd remake)

200 grams all-purpose flour
75 grams Dutch-process cocoa
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
200 grams brown or white sugar
200 grams cooked beet
½ cup water
100 grams buttermilk (or yogurt, or sour cream)
2 eggs
150 grams oil

1. Preheat oven to 350℉/180℃. Grease a 10” pan and line with parchment.
2. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. Puree beets and buttermilk until smooth. Add eggs, brown sugar, cocoa mixture and oil and combine well. (I just put all this in the food processor and liquified it)
4. Pour over dry ingredients and whisk to combine. Do not overmix.
5. Scrape into pan and bake for 30-40 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. (May take longer)
6. Cool in pan on rack, then turn out of pan. Dust with icing sugar and serve with whipped cream.

The verdict? Well, the top was very cracked, but it was very moist, chocolaty and fudgy. It doesn't taste of beets at all. I found it perfect with whipped cream and a cup of coffee.

This is the first one I made, back in October. It had more cocoa, no water,
less oil and a fussier preparation. It looks much the same as version 2 though.

Daring Bakers' January Challenge--The world comes to Canada

Graham Crackers and Nanaimo Bars!

I'd never made graham crackers or Nanaimo bars before this 2-part challenge, so I was excited, more so by the graham crackers than the bars. Nanaimo bars are really sweet. It was an option to make the graham wafers gluten-free, but I used wheat flour to make my wafers, as I seemed that I had nothing in the house to make these, and buying three more flours was not practical for me with all the other ingredients I needed. 

The graham wafers were really easy to put together and the dough was not as sticky as the gluten-free version. After rolling out, I used my new cookie cutters. Turns out that even graham wafers with slightly rude messages are cute! No photos, and I have already eaten the evidence. This was the tastiest dough I have made in a long time, and it was hard to stop snacking on it.

They baked much more quickly than the recipe specified, and if I had paid more attention to the other Daring Bakers' comments, I would have kept an eye on them. As it was, I was also distracted by Australian Open tennis on TV, so I ended up with many dark graham wafers. Those are the ones I used for the base of the Nanaimo Bars. 

The recipe made a lot of graham wafers, so there were lots left over, and they made a great snack with a cup of tea.

The next step was making the base. I toasted some almonds and unsweetened coconut and combined them with the graham wafer crumbs.

To this I added a mixture of butter, sugar, cocoa and an egg that had been cooked in a double boiler.

I spread this in the pan and refrigerated it while I thought about the filling. The original recipe calls for butter, icing sugar, cream, vanilla and custard powder. Custard powder! Ick. I looked at it and vanilla pudding in the grocery store a number of times. I even found an organic version at my local health food store. However, they are basically cornstarch and artificial flavourings and I couldn't bring myself to buy them. I have always found Nanaimo bars too sweet, so I decided to change the filling a little bit. I made a thick pastry cream with some milk, cornstarch and an egg yolk. I beat together some butter and icing sugar and then added the cooled pastry cream gradually. I also added some vanilla bean paste. What I ended up with was a paler, less sweet version of the custard-flavoured buttercream centre. It was really light and fluffy instead of dense and gritty, so I was very happy with it. Unfortunately I have no photos, as this was a late-night affair, and I had no good light. However, you can see it in the finished Nanaimo bars. 

You can also see that there is not a lot of chocolate on top, as, once again, I didn't pay attention to what my fellow Daring Bakers were saying in the forums. Most people found that the 4 ounces of chocolate and a bit of butter melted together was insufficient to coat the top. So, I tried it with 2 ounces of chocolate, and, big surprise, it wasn't enough. I'm not a huge fan of chocolate that hasn't been made into a cake anyway, so I just drizzled on the chocolate and found that there was enough for me. 

These are the 3 pieces I saved for myself, as I gave the rest away. This blogging business is hard work, so maybe I'll go and have one now. Be sure to check here to see the beautiful and creative Nanaimo bars the rest of the Daring Bakers have come up with. 

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca. Lauren's notes and gluten-free recipe are after the jump.