Valentine’s day is a great day to bake some sweet treats for the people you love. This cake is naturally colored with beetroot but doesn’t have its flavor.
When I first got the idea to make a Valentine’s day cake, I wanted to do a red velvet cake. Those deep red cakes seemed perfect for the occasion. But as soon as I started researching recipes, my enthusiasm waned. It turned out that that lovely red color was simply the result of massive amounts of artificial foodcoloring. I didn’t immediately want to give up my idea of a colored cake though. Surely I could make a cake red in a less artificial way?
I did some more research and found that natural dye can definitely add color to your food. But they can’t give you the same vibrant colors their artificial counterparts can. So, I accepted that and started looking for a natural red/pinkish color. The best way to go seemed to be beetroot. Beetroots contain a betalain pigment called betanin. In contrast to some food dyes, betalains are actually supposed to be good for you. Betanin is also known as E162. For people who are scared of eating “E-numbers”, this should probably be some food for thought.
The one big downside of using beetroot, is that it tastes like… beetroot. I actually like the taste of beetroot, but not in a cake. Using beetroot purée also added a lot of moisture, which affected the texture, making the cake very dense. To solve this problem, I decided to dehydrate my purée and turn the beetroot into a powder. Only after I went through the trouble of making beetroot powder, did I discover that you can actually buy it in shops as a health food.
Usually, I’m not much of a cake-decorator. But to turn this cake into a Valentine’s cake, I needed to get creative. So I made some heart-shaped decorations from white chocolate. I also made a handy tutorial video, which you can find above, so you can make them too.
In the end, I managed to create a cake that has a pink hue, a light texture, doesn’t taste like beetroot and has some cute decorations. I’m confident it’ll work great as a Valentine’s day treat.
| Prep Time | 20 minutes |
| Cook Time | 50 minutes |
| Servings |
pieces
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- 2 tbsp beetroot powder
- 150 g flour
- 15 g cornstarch
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 100 ml sunflower oil or another mild tasting vegetable oil
- 150 g caster sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 tsp coffee extract
- 100 ml milk
- 2 tbsp vinegar
- 50 ml orange juice
- 50 g white chocolate
- 1 piping bag or homemade equivalent
Ingredients
Cake ingredients
Decoration
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- Line your baking tin with baking parchment. I use a 17cm springmould.
- Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
- Mix the vinegar with the milk and set aside for now.
- In a mixer-bowl combine sunflower oil, caster sugar, coffee extract and the egg. Mix until fluffy.
- In a separate bowl, combine your flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt. Add this, a bit at a time, to your egg mix.
- Alternating between the flour mix and milk add to the ingredients to the mixer-bowl.
- Finally add the beetroot powder and orange juice. Mix until everything is well combined.
- Pour the batter into your prepared tin and put in the oven for about 50 minutes.
- Meanwhile make your chocolate decorations by piping molten chocolate onto baking parchment. Once they're cool enough to handle, put them in the fridge to firm up.
- After taking your cake out of the oven, place onto a wire rack for 10 minutes. Then remove the cake from the mould to cool completely.
- Finally, place the chocolate decorations on your cake.
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