Jamie's splendid beetroot cake

A post in English for a change … simply because today I'm too lazy and too busy to start writing this post in both Swedish and Finnish as I normally do. And the temptation is too big as I have the English recipe right in front of my eyes.

All of Jamie's recipes that I have come upon are easy to make and the result is usually to my liking. Furthermore they often consist of few ingredients and are not very time-consuming. As I was looking for a nice recipe for a beetroot-chocolate cake I stumbled upon this one … it lacks the chocolate but so what … fewer calories, which is ok. Jamie didn't use any icing on his cake but he served a boozy vanilla crème fraîche with it instead. The original recipe can be found here.

I made a delicious icing with goat's cheese, Philadelphia cheese, butter and icing sugar. As you can see this frosting plus some honey-coated nuts and Blomsterströssel from ADD:WISE made the cake look gorgeous. But when it comes to tasting it there is, however, one tiny problem: you simply can't stop eating because this cake is not overly sweet and so fantastically moist and lovely that you want to feel this sumptuous taste in your mouth forever. And this statement comes from somebody who doesn't indulge in cake-eating very often!

Ingredients for Jamie's "surprise pudding":

500 g raw beetroots, preferably organic, scrubbed clean (I used my last ones from the autumn harvest)

2 thumb-sized pieces fresh ginger, finely chopped

3 large free-range eggs, separated

150 ml honey

170 ml olive oil

1 vanilla pod, seeds (I used some vanilla bean extract instead)

2 heaped teaspoons baking powder

100 g polenta

1 orange, zest and juice

1 good pinch salt

1 good pinch allspice

1 good pinch cinnamon

150 g plain flour (I used half spelt/dinkel wheat and half plain wheat)

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/350 degrees F. Peel your beetroots and coarsely grate them into a bowl. (I used my Kenwood assistant for this). Add the ginger, egg yolks, honey and olive oil in a bowl and add the seeds from the vanilla pod. Whisk together, then add the baking powder, polenta, orange zest and juice, salt, allspice, cinnamon and flour. In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until stiff  and fold them into the beetroot mixture.

2. Get yourself a 25 cm cake tin or cheesecake mould. Rub with butter and dust with a little flour to stop the cake sticking. You could also line it with greaseproof paper to be on the safe side. Pour in the mixture, then bake in the preheated oven for around 35 minutes until spongy. Test whether it's ready by poking a cocktail stick into it - if it's clean when it comes out you know the cake is done. Allow to cool.

 Icing:

125 g goat's cheese/chèvre, without the crust

200 ml icing sugar

50 g soft butter

175 g Philadelphia cheese

Whisk the soft butter and the goat's cheese with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add the icing sugar little by little and whisk until everything is well mixed and fluffy. Add the Philadelphia cheese and whisk until everything is well combined and fluffy. Spread the icing, with the help of a spatula, on top of the cake.

Honey-coated nuts:

150 ml nuts (I used hazel-, wal- and cashewnuts)

2 tablespoons honey

Roast your nuts in a dry pan. When they start turning golden brown pour some honey over them and shake the pan. Pour the nuts onto a baking paper and let them cool.

Add the nuts on top of the icing for a lovely sweet crunch. By no means don't leave them out!

I also added some scented flower sprinkle from ADD:WISE (lavender, cornflower, heather).