Chocolate & Beetroot Mud Cake

What better place could there possibly be to hide vegetables than in chocolate cake?!

Beetroot, with it's mild sweetness and gorgeous colour, and dark chocolate is a match made in heaven.

Rich, moist, gluten free and refined sugar free, this is literally a healthy chocolate cake... definitely worth a try!

Ingredients

Mud Cake:

• 250g pre-cooked beetroot (reserve 2tbs of juice)*
• 3 medium eggs
• 1 1/2 cups coconut sugar
• 1/2 cup coconut oil + extra for greasing
• 85g dark chocolate (sweetened with coconut nectar)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 200g almond meal
• 1/2 cup cacao
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt

Cream Cheese Icing:

• 1 cup natural yoghurt
• 1/4 cup coconut sugar
• 1/2 tbs tapioca flour
• 2tbs beetroot juice (reserved from above)

Method

*to cook raw beetroot: wash thoroughly and place in a pot of cold water (unpeeled). Bring to the boil and cook until soft when poked with a knife (approx 30 minutes, depending on the size of the beetroots). Once cooked, run the beets under cold water and gently rub off the skins.

1. Place yoghurt in a large piece of cheese cloth, nut milk bag or muslin. Secure with string and tie to a wooden spoon. Balance spoon across a large bowl so that the bag of yoghurt hangs freely without touching the bottom. Leave for 5-6 hours to strain, then remove cream cheese from the bag and refrigerate in preparation for the icing.
2. Preheat oven to 180C fan forced.
3. Grease a 20cm spring-form tin with coconut oil, and then line with baking paper.
4. Roughly cut the cooked beetroot on a sheet of cling film (to protect your workspace from staining), and blend. It does not have to be completely smooth.
5. Using a double boiler over medium heat, melt the chocolate. Use a metal spoon to stir.**
6. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, 1/2 cup coconut sugar and coconut oil.
7. Add beetroot, melted chocolate and vanilla and combine.
8. Add almond meal, cacao, baking powder and salt. Mix until just combined. Do not over mix.
9. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 40 minutes, or until cake springs back when touched lightly in the centre. Allow to cool briefly in the tin before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
10. While cake is cooling, prepare the icing. Grind the coconut sugar and tapioca flour together in a high powered blender until a powder is formed. Take care not to over grind, otherwise the heat from blending can create moisture and lumps.***
11. Add the homemade cream cheese to the blender and blitz to combine.
12. Spread the cream cheese mixture over the completely cool cake.
13. When you're ready to serve the cake, use a dropper or teaspoon to gently place drops of your reserved beetroot juice in several spots. Use a skewer to gently swirl the juice through the icing. If you do this before you're ready to serve it, you risk the chance of your design disappearing into the icing! :-)

**Tip: To avoid over cooking the chocolate, remove from the heat of the boiler just before the chocolate has completely melted, and use the residual heat to finish.

***Tip: If this happens, pass the icing sugar through a fine sieve before use.