Beetroot Red Velvet Cake

Beetroot Red Velvet Cake (serves 6-8)

Ingredients

75ml milk (whole or semi-skimmed)

2 tsp lemon juice
250g raw beetroot
1.5 tsp white wine vinegar
1tsp vanilla extract
125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 large eggs
250g self raising flour
150g caster sugar
3 tsp cocoa powder
1.5 tsp baking powder

Filling

200g cream cheese (or butter)

300g icing sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 C / 160 C fan / gas 4.

Line two 15cm round (loose bottomed if possible) cake tins with greaseproof paper.
Place milk and lemon juice into small jug and set aside.
Peel and finely chop beetroot and put in food processor with milk and lemon juice mixture, vinegar and vanilla. Blend to a fine, silky smooth puree.
Add butter to puree and give another blitz.
Add eggs and blitz once more until combined and smooth (SB: Mine separated at this point and looked horrible!)
Transfer to large mixing bowl.
Sift flour, sugar, cocoa powder and baking powder into the puree, mix well until everything is combined.
Divide the mixture between two tins and bake for 30-40 minutes until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
Once baked, place cakes on cooling rack for 10 minutes before gently removing from the tins. Cool completely.
To ice, place cheese (or butter) into bowl with a bit of icing sugar, blend (I used an electric hand blender), then add more at a time.
Add vanilla and mix well.
Slice two cakes longitudinally through the middle to create four rounds.
Spread icing on three surfaces. Stack and then put un-iced one on top. Spread the rest of the icing over the top of the cake.

Enjoy!

This cake was made recently by Sue (her comments are included), who took some round to parkrunner Owen's house. We hope he enjoyed it as much as we did.

Recipe from the Saturday Telegraph