Ever since I was introduced to Harry Eastwood’s Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache I’ve enjoyed using vegetables in cake recipes. (See here for for my first attempts – a blondie and a light chocolate cake both using butternut squash and both greatly enjoyed.) I’ve also made scones (with butternut squash – really delicious) and daughter No 1 has made a walnut and coffee cake – a carrot cake with a twist – which she said was very, very good. My only reservation about cooking like this is that grating vegetables is quite time consuming, so I find I need to be more organised than I usually am – no leaving things till 10pm on a Saturday night (well, that’s not a good idea anyway for so many reasons).

Beetroot and raspberry brownies (based on a recipe in Good Food, Easy Baking Recipes)

Although I mentioned Harry Eastwood’s book, the recipe I based these brownies on came from the handy little BBC Books Good Food series (Easy Baking Recipes). These brownies really did look red and velvety when cooked and, with 200g  70% cocoa solids were very chocolaty. Everyone liked them, but for me the beetroot just didn’t work and I can’t quite figure out what I didn’t care for about them, which is a shame for ‘Church Biscuit’ No. 50, but there you go…

Beetroot and raspberry brownies (based on a recipe in Good Food, Easy Baking Recipes)

 Beetroot Brownies with raspberries

100 g/ 4 oz softened unsalted butter

200g/ plain chocolate 70% cocoa solids, broken up

400g/ 14 oz cooked beetroot, roughly chopped or grated

1 tsp. vanilla extract

250g/9oz caster sugar

3 large eggs

100 g/4 oz plain flour

25g/1 oz cocoa powder

small punnet raspberries

Heat oven to 180 degrees F/ 160 degrees F for a fan oven/ gas mark4

Grease and line a baking tray 20 x 30 cm (I only had one 20 x 20 cm, so I made an additional 8 little round brownies in a patty tin).

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Scrape this chocolate into a food processor/blender/ with the butter, beetroot and vanilla. Whizz until mixture is as smooth as you can get it – the butter will melt as you do this. (I mixed mine with a hand whisk which was fine except that I think it would have been better to use a blender which would have pulverised the beetroot to a purée, rather than leaving it slightly lumpy.)

Put sugar and eggs into a bowl and beat until thick, pale and foamy – c. 2 mins. Spoon the beetroot mixture into this, gently folding it in. Sift in the flour and cocoa, gently until a smooth batter results.

Pour into the tin and bake for about 25 mins, until it has risen and – as the recipe says – there is “just the merest quiver under the centre of the crust when you shake the tin”. Cool completely in the tin and when cool cut into squares.

Beetroot and raspberry brownies (based on a recipe in Good Food, Easy Baking Recipes)