It’s about a year back, in a quaint little cafe in Lower Manhattan, that I first came across chocolate and beetroot brownies.
I adore chocolate and do love pairing chocolate with an entire bouquet of stuff, from addictive Oreo cookies and the humble sea salt to luscious oranges and sinful strawberries.
But never had it struck me to experiment an alliance of chocolate with the earthy beetroot.
So this was a rather perplexed me at the cafe counter – There was indeed the allure of these tempting brownies with beautiful scarlet ribbons scarring their surface. Rivers of red crisscrossing an exotic chocolate brown earth.
And yes there was that nagging doubt on how this combination would taste.
Almost sensing my dilemma, the friendly girl at the counter assured me that this was one of their seasonal specials and yes, one of their bestsellers as well.
The brownies turned out to be drop-dead delicious, the mellow sweetness of beetroot perfectly complementing the sharp bitterness of dark chocolate.
Well, a year passed by. And I had almost forgotten about these chocolate and beetroot brownies till this morning when my eyes rested on fresh-from-the-farm beetroot in the local vegetable market.
And I knew in a blink that I had to bake these brownies.
Dark chocolate. Gorgeous red beetroot. And I decided to spike the brownies with the warmth of freshly grated ginger. Not the most commonplace of combinations.
But do give it a try and trust me you shall soon be baking yet another batch of these decadent chocolate and beetroot brownies !!!!
Chocolate And Beetroot Brownies
Ingredients
- 125 g plain flour
- 200 g 70% dark chocolate coarsely chopped
- 200 g beetroot grated
- 200 g unsalted butter
- 120 g brown sugar
- 3 eggs
- 2 tbsps unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tbsps ginger grated
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg freshly grated
- 1/4 tsp salt
- little butter to grease the tin
- little cocoa powder to dust the brownies
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven at 180C.
- Line a 8inch square cake tin with parchment paper, grease generously with butter. Keep aside.
- Add the butter and chopped chocolate shards to a bowl. Place the bowl over a pan of boiling water, stir till the chocolate melts and gets incorporated into the butter. Keep aside, allow to cool down.
- In another bowl, take the eggs and sugar. Whisk well to blend. Into this, fold in the melted chocolate gently with a wooden or rubber spatula.
- Sift the flour, cocoa powder nutmeg powder and salt to aerate the dry mixture. Keep aside in a bowl.
- Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ones, ensuring that the batter has no lumps. Do not over-mix.
- Finally fold in the grated beetroot and ginger.
- Pour the batter into the greased cake tin and bake for 20-25 minutes till a skewer comes out with little moist crumbs sticking to it. Do not over-bake the brownies, ever!!
- Remove from the oven, cool over a wire rack. Cut into squares and dust with cocoa powder. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Very new combination . Will try soon