I am keen to experiment and explore the various combinations of my food. I made my first Chocolate, beetroots and dates cake in 2015, March without chocolate icing, then the following year, I made Dark chocolate, beetroots and dates with icing using yoghurt and dark chocolate and decorated with strawberries dunk in dark chocolate. In 2017, I made Chocolate cola cake with chocolate ganache and decorate with berries and candles.

This year 2018, the #CookingChallenge using Chocolate and pair with anything. The first thing came to my mind before reading to the bottom of the Challenge rules was Chocolate Cheesecakes with chilli. But it’s done dead. I so happened to have can beetroot in my pantry and since my garden have a lots of figs, I decided to use figs instead of dates.

The taste of this Chocolate beetroots-figs cake were more delicious, and yummy than the previous cakes with dates. It has smooth and a bit crunchy texture. The chocolate icing balanced of the sweetness from beetroots and figs.

When you bite into it the first flavour of sweetness from beetroots, and figs bursting with yoghurt and kicking of the slight bitter effect of dark chocolate and the end results in your mouth is like heaven been filled with lots of chocolatier romance followed by a bite of ferrero, strawberry and fig.

Ingredients

200 g dark cooking chocolate, broken into pieces
425 g beetroot sliced can, reserved the water
200 g figs, remove stems, cut bite size
150 g figs, remove stems and quartered
500 ml natural yoghurt
4 eggs
3/4 c castor sugar
1 1/2 – 2 c plain flour
1/4 c cocoa powder, good quality
2 Tsp baking powder
3/4 c olive oil

Icing

200 g melting chocolate chips
1-2 Tbs Oil
4 Tsp beetroots water

Decoration and serving

1 punnet strawberries, washed dried
1 box of 3 types ferrero chocolates flavour
a handful figs, washed, dried and cut up for deco and serve

Method

Preheat oven 180 degrees C. Grease and line a spring form cake tin (approx. 24 cm in size) with baking paper at the bottom. Place beetroots, 200 g figs, 2 Tsp beetroots water and yoghurt in to the blender, blend until well combined. Followed by eggs, and sugar, blend further until well combined. Then sieve flour, cocoa powder and baking powder together in a deep plate. (Sieve 1 1/2 c first).

Melt chocolate in microwave 20 seconds each time for 2- 3 times. Stir in 3/4 c oil. Next in a large bowl, combined dry ingredients, melted chocolate, beetroot and figs mixtures. Fold together with a large metal spoon until well combined. (Do not over mix). The batter should be consistency.

Spoon some batter into prepared cake tin and place 150 g figs; gently push in. Then spoon the rest of the batter, smooth the top. Gives a few gentle bang on the benchtop. Bake for 1 hour 30 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly pressed; test with a skewer it would not be very clean; a bit fudgy as figs burst a bit of juice.

Switch off oven and stand in oven for 15 minutes. Then another 20 minutes before removing from tin.

To make the icing: melt chocolate gently in a bowl in microwave about 20 seconds each time; stir and repeat a further 2 – 3 times. When melted stir in oil and beetroots water. Ice the cake with chocolate icing when cool.

Decorate: arrange both side with quartered figs followed by medium size halves figs. Then white coconut flavour ferrero, strawberry, nutty ferrero, another strawberry and dark chocolate ferrero. Then dust some cocoa powder on top of cake.

Note: Oven temperature may vary. You might need less time say 60 minutes. I use 2 c flour. So, you might need to add more flour if too watery or to thick add the water from beetroot.

https://helenscchin.com/2018/03/08/chocolate-beetroots-figs-cake/

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