Chocolate Beetroot Cherry Brownies

Chocolate Beetroot Cherry Brownies
Beetroot Chocolate Cherry Brownies
Cherry Chocolate Beetroot Brownies
Chocolate Cherry Beetroot Brownies…….adlib to fade……

Chocolate Beetroot Cherry Brownies

A modern day Black Forest Gateau……kinda….. Beetroot keeps it all good and moist…….fudgy, chocolate heaven…..

Makes 1 x 25 cm cake (I used a deep fluted tart tin)
 
200 g ground almonds
150 g dark Chocolate
75 g flour
pinch salt
150 g light muscovado sugar
75 g butter
2 egg yolks, beaten
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
200 g fresh cherries
1 tablespoon cassis, optional (see not below)
1 large raw beetroot, about 200 g unpeeled weight
Softly whipped cream to serve1. Preheat the oven to 170 C Gas mark 3. Line the base of a round 25 cm cake tin with baking parchment. (You could always use a small roasting tin if you don’t have such a large round tin.)
 
2. Tip the ground almonds into the food processor bowl. Break the chocolate into cubes and add to the bowl. Whiz until the chocolate is finely chopped.
 
3. Add the flour, salt and sugar and whiz briefly again, then add the butter, beaten egg yolks and vanilla and whiz until a firm paste is formed when pressed together with fingers. Turn the mix into a large bowl.
 
4. Pit the cherries and drop into a small bowl with the cassis, if using and turn to coat. Pour any of the excess of the cassis into the bowl of mixture, peel and coarsely grate the beetroot and stir both in.
 
5. Spread the mixture evenly into the tin and push the cherries into the mixture evenly over the surface and place in oven and cook for 40-50 minutes until the mixture is firm round the edges but the centre is still fairly soft and squidgy.
 
6. Remove from oven leave to cool for 5 minutes before removing from tin and leaving to cool completely before serving. Serve with some softly whipped cream.
 
 
Little notes……I used Creme de Cassis, because that’s what I had in the back of the cupboard. It’s a handy one to have, here it intensifies the flavour of the cherries but also good even just lightly splashed onto vanilla ice cream, and of course for Kia’s and Kia Royale’s. A dribble of this in the bottom of a glass topped up with white wine or fizzy wine respectfully. I do like this.

For the cake, you could try other liquers. Cherry brandy or Kirsch, but maybe only a splash of either as more potent,  could be options. Or is there anything else that you’ve got lurking in the back of your cupboard that might be good…..

Warm or cold…….Petra and I had to try it out warm out the oven, for purely scientific reasons, to compare it to when it’s cold obviously. Eating it warm, it was more of a pudding and would have been perfect with softly whipped cream……

……later that night……Hannah posted that having given up smoking recently she deserved my recipe for this…..my reply was  “…… I’ve literally just had a piece. It is really, really good. Crunchy and chewy round the edges, and squidgy and fudgy in the middle. It will be at it’s best tomorrow too….”……. It is….cold from the fridge just now was just that, cool, fudgy, chocolate heaven…..