Tuesday 22 May 2012

Chocolate Beetroot Cake (FAIL)



If you are at all enthralled by the title of this post, don't be.


Vegetables and chocolate... it is such a nice thought, it really is. I appreciate the effort. And beets? I love them too, I really do. But this recipe was a disappointment. 


There, I've said it. You've been warned. 






This recipe, I'm sure, was made by an obsessive fan of all moist zucchini loaves, who so ignorantly believed the marriage between treat and vegetable would be as harmonious in all situations. 


It is not. 




Furthermore, this post is a reminder to all baking souls out there: you must follow your instinct. Sure, a request is fabulous if it inspires you, if it opens your eyes to new flavour combinations that you never imagined, and makes you a better baker at the end. But a request that makes you feel uncomfortable, one that goes against the grain of your very baking-being... just pass it by. 


I learned that lesson the hard way. 


If the beet wasn't enough of an indication, the dark chocolate should have been.  




There are recipes that rightly glorify dark chocolate, ones that are perfectly paired with tart raspberries, and those that are balanced out by generous amounts of butter, icing sugar, or ganache. Neither happened in this case. 


Dark chocolate with beet is not so glorious. 


If you are starting to think that this cake won't taste great, you're right. 




But it was fun to take pictures of. Here is when we combined the chocolate-beet mixture with half of the stiffly whipped eggs.




There was so much more! Not the easiest to mix without ruining the texture of the ultra fluffy eggs. (Complaints, complaints, I know. Hard to see past the work when the end result was so disappointing!)




And here, finally, the result. 



Admittedly, we took this out of the oven before we should have. Everyone had trekked over for family dinner and the cake was sacrificed for the sake of time. 


See? A liiiiiiiiittle underdone. 




But here is the WEIRDEST THING. It was the middle, the undercooked, unintentionally jiggly part that was the tastiest.


The part that was cooked as it should have been? It was dry, chalky chocolate flavour and totally uninspiring. 




I feel like this is the cake's way of sending me a message as a baker: stop putting vegetables in your cakes and definitely stop making things you don't want to make. 


They will always suck. 




So don't try to be a bunny if you're a cat!


Although, for the record, I am definitely not a cat. 


I like to envision myself as something more akin, in looks and character, to this heavenly creature:




!!!!!


No, just kidding. I could never grow such phenomenal facial hair, no matter how hard I tried.


One can dream though! 

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