Fabric sale coming up: you need a chocolate cup cake!

• “Real” red velvet chocolate cake.
• Celebrity chef recipe.
• Beetroot.
• Dark Chocolate.
• Cream cheese icing.

Resistance was futile!

These were made with Poh Ling Yeow’s recipe from her new cookbook Same Same But Different. Poh made hers as a 20 cm cake, with the cream cheese icing in the middle and chocolate ganache on the sides and top.

I made cupcakes.

Delicious, moist, earthy, not-too-sweet dark chocolate cupcakes with lemon cream cheese icing.

Cake batter

• 300g (2-3 large) beetroots
• 3 large eggs, whisked
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 125g unsalted butter
• 100g dark chocolate (70% cocoa)
• 200g caster sugar
• 220g plain flour, sifted
• 2 teaspoons baking soda, sifted
• 100g drinking chocolate powder, sifted

Cream cheese icing

• 250g cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup (120g) icing sugar, sifted
• 100g unsalted butter, softened
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

Method

1. Roast the beetroot at 180°C for 30-45 minutes in a casserole dish with a lid and a little bit of water in the bottom of the dish. Cool and then rub the skins off. Your skin will go a lovely pink colour but don’t worry. Betalains (beetroot pigments) are very water soluble and the colour will wash off easily!
2. Weigh out 250g of beets, then pulverise with a food processor. Add the eggs and vanilla and whisk until combined. If the beets are still warm, let them cool before you add the eggs or you’ll have the most gorgeous coloured scrambled eggs you’ve ever seen.
3. Adjust oven to 170°C (or 160°C if its fan-forced).
4. Melt butter, take off the heat and whisk in the chocolate. Stir until chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth, then add to beetroot mixture and wizz in the food processor until combined.
5. Sift the flour, baking soda and drinking chocolate powder into a medium to large sized bowl, mix in the caster sugar,then add the chocolate beetroot mixture and stir until just combined. I wish I had taken a photo at this stage. The cake mixture was a glorious deep dark red.
6. Pour into patty pans and bake for 25–30 minutes. This recipe makes 19 cup cakes.
7. To make the cream cheese icing, beat all the ingredients except the lemon juice until very pale and fluffy. Add the lemon juice last and beat until just combined.

If you’re in Adelaide this week, make some of these and eat them in front of the fire.

You need to prepare yourself for Gay Naffines fabric sale.

Where: 29-31 Hamley St, Adelaide

When:

• Friday 4 July, 9 am to 5 pm
• Saturday 5 July, 9 am to 4 pm
• Sunday 6 July, 11 am to 2 pm

 

See you there.