A quirky character cake for Sheena

Sometimes Melissa and I can be a bit rubbish at remembering things, especially important dates like friends' birthdays.  No matter how many times we mention it and remind ourselves in the weeks before the event, the date will fly right past us until that forehead-smacking moment when we realise it's too late.

So when it's a really good friend's birthday that escapes us (sorry again Sheena!), we usually make up for it by making an extra nice cake. 

I had borrowed this great book in the library called Fun and Original Character Cakes and I had been waiting for an excuse to make this really cute cake that appears on the front of it.  Sheena and her husband Nathan have just had a beautiful baby boy called Murphy, so we thought that Sheena deserved a little pampering in return for the sleepless nights she's been having with the little one.  This cake seemed to fit the bill.

The cake was a beetroot and chocolate loaf cake which I based on a Diana Henry recipe.  I was a bit worried about how the cake would turn out as we had a power surge that blew the fuse for the cooker right in the middle of baking it.  Luckily we replaced the fuse quickly and it didn't make any difference to the final result.

The book gives step by step instructions for making all the decorations.  I made a few tweaks to the design, mainly making it into an old fashioned roll top bath shape on a chequered floor.  The original design has a round bath which is covered with black sugarpaste, but I try not to use black very much as it has so much colouring added it doesn't taste very nice.

About half way through making the cake, Melissa and I had a little panic that Sheena might be offended by giving her a cake with a hippo on it.  At this stage I'd already spent hours making it and they were due to arrive soon so there wasn't really time to change plans.  I just had to hope that it would be cute enough and she would appreciate the effort we had gone to.  And the main thing that matters is the taste right?

Luckily Sheena loved it, and really liked how long Miss Hippo's eyelashes were.  She took the cake to her family gathering the next day and they all gave really great feedback.  What was interesting was that the cake actually got more chocolatey and moist the following day -  I think that might be because of the beetroot.

There are some other quirky cake designs in the book that I really want to make.  I guess I'll just have to wait to miss another friend's birthday to try one out ;o)

Beetroot...in a brownie??

Melissa and I both really like beetroot but for some reason they never seem to fit into any of the meals we're making (and I had also promised Melissa that I wouldn't make her eat the bright pink beetroot and vodka valentine's risotto again).  While we were at Shoreham Farmers' Market the other weekend Melissa and I had signed up to a local veggie box scheme and three earthy purple cricket balls from our first delivery had been sitting in our fridge for a few days calling out for me to use them in something good. 

I remembered a cookery programme I saw a while back when Diana Henry made a beetroot and chocolate cake that looked absolutely delicious.  I thought, if it could work in a cake, then why not a brownie?  So I googled "beetroot chocolate brownie" and top of the results was a recipe from BBC Good Food for a beetroot brownie.  It called for 500g of beetroot, which was exactly the weight of the three beets I had in the fridge, so figuring it must be a sign I decided to whip up a batch.

It always feels like a comedy recipe when you have to put on rubber gloves before you start but I have to say this is one of the weirdest recipe's I think I've ever made!  The gloves are necessary to prevent Lady Macbeth syndrome from the deep purple juices that seep out of the beetroot, which you peel, chop then microwave until cooked.  Then while they're still hot you stick them in the food processor with butter and a rubbley pile of bashed up dark chocolate chunks and blitz until everything has pureed and melted together.  I have to say it did not look appetising at this point...

You then whip up some eggs and sugar and fold in the mixture, adding flour and cocoa powder at then end.  What you end up is a pinky brown beetrooty chocoatey mush that looks like this:

Utterly unsure of how this was going to turn out I stuck the tray in the oven, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.  20 minutes later they were cooked to perfection but Melissa and I were both none the wiser as to whether they would taste any good!

Once they had cooled I cut them into squares and carefully lifted them onto plates (as they are quite delicate) for an after dinner treat.  The texture of the brownies was beautiful - they managed to be rich, chocolatey and moist but still quite light at the same time.  I was a bit unsure of the taste on the first bite as you can taste the earthy tang of the beetroot, but they are surprisingly really moorish.  Usually one brownie is more than enough for me but I would have quite happily polished off a second one.  And as they are only half the fat of a regular brownie it wouldn't be a total sin to do so....

Our friend Jo is down for her birthday tonight so we now have some beetroot birthday brownies for her to sample for an unbiased verdict :o)