Beetroot Brownie

One of your five a day… with chocolate

Beetroots place in the culinary world is largely cast in the savoury camp, but there is a lot of hidden sugar to be exploited. Aside from inherent sweetness, beetroots earthy yet floral character is the perfect palette partner to chocolate, mingling with the smoky vanilla tones and silky texture as if they were soul mates.

The beauty with beetroot is its ability to remain moist and tender when cooked, in a similar way to carrot in a carrot cake, almost feeling like a chocolate chunk. Young plants at the start of the season around July give a much softer texture while those harvested towards the end of the season in late Autumn can get a little woody. While both work fabulously in this recipe, the early seasons harvest cooks quicker and remains softer.


Serves… that all depends on how much you like to share?
Preparation time: 1 hour 25 minutes
Cooking time:40 minutes
Ingredients:
200g ish, beetroot
3 eggs
250g golden caster sugar
250g unsalted butter
250g 70% chocolate
85g self-raising flour
1tsp instant coffee granules
¼tsp ground cardamom
1tsp sea salt flakes

Preheat the oven to 160°C

1. Leaving the skin on, trim the root and stalks of the raw beetroot and cook in a simmer pan of water until just tender. A sharp knife should slide into the flesh with a little resistance and hesitate for just a moment before dropping off the blade. Drain and leave in the pan with the lid on until cool enough to handle.  

2. Line a 20cm square cake tin with parchment.

3. Melt the chocolate and butter either in the microwave, using short minute blasts, or in a glass bowl over a pan of gently simmering water. Leave to cool.
 
4. Meanwhile in a stand mixer, or by hand in a bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, cardamom and coffee until the mixture is pale and a little frothy, leaving a trail behind the beaters for just a moment, before subsiding.

5. The beetroot should be cool enough to handle by now. Wipe off the skin and coarsely grate into the chocolate and butter mixture, then slowly beat into the eggs.

6. Gently beat in the flour and pour into the prepared tin, level the mixture out and bake in the preheated oven until there is a satisfying uniform wobble in the centre. Once baked, sprinkle with some sea salt flakes and leave in the tin to cool. Set in the fridge before portioning to make cutting a little easier, this is a gooey brownie!

Serve with absolutely anything or simply nothing, but this does go very well with ice cream or a cup of tea in the afternoon.

Chef Notes:
1. The quantity of flour is variable depending on preference. 120g will give a lighter texture while 60g a more fudgy chew. 
2. Looking for that uniform wobble is a sign that the eggs are cooked but not set. The whole top should move as one, gently as the tin is shaken rather than having a liquid movement. This leaves that well known brownie texture. 

Robin Popham
Chef at ‘Create Terroir’ and Sandy Lane Farm veg box customer