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

Saturday 12 January 2019 – Fletcher Moss parkrun, and Afternoon Tea

Another ‘new for us’ parkrun. Fletcher Moss parkrun is in Didsbury – convenient for Sue and me this morning as Mike and Sarah had asked us to accompany them on some house viewings just around the corner from this park. It’s a newish parkrun venue and attracted a record 362 participants today for its ninth event. No wonder Paul, Sue, Greg and I all finished further down the field than we’d anticipated. It was a shame that Jan couldn’t join us due to a car break-in; we hope that is quickly fixed.

The route is shown below (including two laps of the ‘M’ shaped section) and would be very convenient for Mike and Sarah if their interest in the house marked with an asterisk came to anything.

The paths were pretty narrow, and we saw someone we recognised, but as in the case of last week, when Sue only identified my brother after he had pedalled into the distance, we weren’t able to attract Charlie’s attention. He always likes to be at the front, and had probably left for home by the time we had finished.

Didsbury Sports Ground’s club house offered a spacious area for us to enjoy a coffee with Paul and Greg before dashing off to view houses.

Sue’s time was faster than last week’s, despite not having Gayle to encourage her – perhaps as a result of yesterday’s carb loading thanks to an excellent Christmas present from Nell. Patisserie Valerie provided an excellent Afternoon Tea, and any post-tea feeling of queasiness was purely coincidental.

My own time was rather slower than last week’s but this course was harder and more congested – that’s my excuse. Full results are here.

Sunday 14 February 2016 – A Walk, A Skate, and A Cake

We rose from our warm beds to a temperature of minus 28C outside, the coldest it has been here this winter. Too cold for comfortable skiing, so Sue and Ken went for a skate on the Rideau Canal.

Helen stayed at home and I walked down to the canal to meet Sue and Ken for lunch. We are about the same distance from the centre of Ottawa as we are in Timperley from the centre of Manchester (13 to 15 km), but some of the riverside stretches here are on private land. So it’s a 4 km road walk to Hog’s Back falls, into which the water in the top picture pours.

Nearby, the footpath beside the Rideau Canal is joined at this lock.

After a couple of kilometres the end of the skating rink is reached. The sign at the end of the canal indicates 7.8 km to the Parliament Buildings – claiming to be the longest rink in the world.

I walked about half way down the rink before meeting Ken and Sue. Here, the rink passes under a bridge, near the TD football stadium, home of the Ottawa Redblacks. Note the motorist who appears to have taken the wrong exit at a roundabout. Canadians don’t ‘do’ roundabouts!

It was a day for wrapping up warm.

It’s traditional to snack on ‘BeaverTails’ when skating on the canal. These are flavoured pastries, our favourite being cinnamon and sugar. By the time we had queued up, we were sufficiently cold to need to indulge in a bit of speed eating, so photos of the actual BeaverTails (which is exactly what they look like) will have to wait.

I walked and the others skated back to where Ken’s car was parked next to the Dow’s Lake extension to the ice rink. Somehow I managed to arrive first, and I was relieved to see them not too far behind me on this icy cold day.

In between all this activity, Helen and Sue had been baking a cake. It was Ken’s birthday today. Just two years to go before retirement for him.

The kitchen had, during the manufacturing process, been designated a ‘no go’ zone due to a minor explosion of sugar. Surely they were making a cake, not a bomb! But I was allowed to record the results of their efforts, as portrayed below.

Careful! It’s about to explode!

I dread to think what’s in the turquoise icing…

Toby and Krystle’s Wedding, and The Cake

Last Friday we had the pleasure of attending my nephew’s wedding. Toby can be spotted occasionally on these pages, usually on a dark December evening up Shutlingsloe. He and Krystle ventured very close to Shutlingsloe and even closer to White Nancy, for their wedding at Hollin Hall.

A joyous occasion, enjoyed by everyone.

There’s a short slideshow here that will probably only be of interest to family members.

Sue in particular enjoyed the day, once her cake responsibilities had been fulfilled and she was able to relax. Here’s what she says:

“Here are a few photos of the cake I made for the wedding last Friday.  The top and bottom tiers were fruit, the middle one was madeira sponge.

Thanks to Top Tier cakes in Sale Moor for their excellent advice, and supply of boards, icing, pearls, etc.

As you can see, I chickened out of putting roses in a swirl all the way down the cake (too many vertical surfaces), but Krystle was happy as it was.

Although I say it myself, it tasted super too!”

(Especially the sponge cake, which was my small contribution – Ed.)