Emma Is there anything more romantic than getting something home-made? A card? Dinner? or this cake? Bonne Maman have this delicious cake recipe which I had to share, chocolate, raspberries and with a healthy secret ingredient – beetroot!
Recipe: Bonne Maman Valentine’s Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
- 100 g 3 ½ oz cooked beetroot, roughly chopped
- 5 tbsp Bonne Maman Raspberry Conserve
- 125 g 4 ½ oz milk chocolate, chopped
- 125 g 4 ½ oz unsalted butter, diced
- 125 g 4 ½ oz plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 6 tsp cocoa powder
- 3 medium eggs separated
- 110 g 4oz golden caster sugar
- 15 g 1/2 oz finely chopped hazelnuts
- Fresh raspberries and icing sugar to decorate
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 180C, fan oven 160C, gas mark 4.
- Grease and line a 15cm wide, 8cm deep heart-shaped tin with baking parchment.
- Put the beetroot and 2 tbsp of the conserve in a blender and blitz for a few seconds to puree.
- Put 100g of the chocolate and 100g of the butter into a large heatproof bowl and set over a saucepan of gently simmering water for 10 minutes to melt.
- Meanwhile, sift together 70g of the flour, the baking powder and 5 tsp of the cocoa.
- Stir the melted chocolate and butter together until smooth.
- Now beat in the egg yolks until smooth.
- Fold in the beetroot puree.
- Whisk the egg whites until stiff then gradually whisk in 85g of the sugar until the egg whites are stiff and shiny.
- Fold into the beetroot mixture.
- Now sift the dry ingredients again into the bowl and fold in quickly using a large metal spoon.
- Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin, turn the oven down to 160C, fan oven 140C, gas mark 3. and put in the oven for 45mins to 1hr.
- A skewer pushed into the centre should come out clean.
- Leave to cool in the tin before turning out.
- Meanwhile, make the chocolate crumbs.
- Put the remaining 55g of plain flour, 1 tsp cocoa, 25g caster sugar and 25g of butter into a small bowl and rub together until crumbly.
- Spread on a foil-lined baking sheet and put into the oven for 15-20 minutes until lightly baked. Cool.
- Finely grate the remaining 25g chocolate into the cold crumbs and add the hazelnuts.
- Turn the cake bottom up and spread with the remaining conserve.
- Spoon over the chocolate crumbs and pat down well into the conserve.
- Put a heart of fresh raspberries on top and dust with icing sugar before serving.
