I’ve always thought that brownies are a grown-up excuse to eat raw cake mixture – a cursory nod to the oven gives them baked-goods legitimacy, just as a whiff of the martini bottle is the grown-up excuse to down a large bucket of gin. This version from Hugh Fearnley Whitingstall with beetroot is, of course, just another such excuse – put a healthy ingredient in your cake mix, and gorge without guilt! I jumped on the River Cottage bandwagon last week, and made the chocolate beet brownies below with grated beetroot as well as a beetroot ice-cream to go with them. I can tell you that they’re delicious, as long as you like beetroot. There’s no getting away from the earthy taste even in the brownies, as it comes out in the slightly undercooked centre of the brownie pan. I really liked eating them together, the ice-cream with its extraordinary fuchsia colour contrasting with the savoury/sweet brownie. Next time I would puree the beetroot well for the brownies and for the ice-cream use slightly less of the root than stipulated in the recipe, possibly adding some chocolate chips to the just-churned mixture. Overall, a success, but not one to convince beetroot-avoiders. (Oh, by the way, if you’re a surreptitious snacker, these brownies will tinge your guilty fingers pink…)
I’d never heard of kasutera before reading this post from Teochew, but it is light as a feather (as it has no added fat other than eggs and milk) and well worth a bit of whisking in front of the hob – a good BBC Radio 4 podcast and an electric whisk are essential. Imagine a honey-flavoured zabaione batter, eggs whisked into voluminous lusciousness, thickened with a little flour, baked, glazed with more honey and then chilled overnight to become moist and even fluffier. Simple, absolutely delicious and well worth the bit of time involved.
Nigella’s Christmas Cookies are deceptively simple – just the usual suspects of butter, sugar, flour and cocoa modged together and splodged into little balls on a baking sheet. They come out of the oven crackled like the surface of an oil painting, and once glazed have the sheen of a just-varnished masterpiece. Sprinkles optional.
Beetroot brownies
Adapted from River Cottage Everyday
Ingredients
- 250g butter, unsalted
- 250g dark chocolate (I used 70% Lindt Excellence)
- 3 eggs
- 250g caster sugar
- Pinch salt
- 150g self-raising flour
- 250g cooked and pureed beetroot
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180˚C. Grease a baking tray 23cm square, or similar.
- Melt the butter and chocolate in the warming oven, or over a pan of hot water.
- In another bowl, whisk eggs and sugar together, then pour in the melted chocolate and butter. Sift in salt and flour and fold to combine. Fold in the beetroot. (Try not to overwork the mixture).
- Pour into the tin and bake for 20-25 minutes – as ever with brownies, the trick is to get them just on the point of setting, so they are still sludgy but eatable with fork rather than spoon. That’s something that requires experimentation and practice to get spot on… oh no, more brownie baking…
Preparation time: 10 minute(s)
Cooking time: 25 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 12
Meal type: dessert
Culinary tradition: English
