Sometimes it feels like citrus and chocolate rule desserts — and that’s not a bad thing — but I like to explore more unique flavorings… Such as beet. Somewhere on the web, I discovered that beet cake used to be a common dessert in England a few centuries ago. To me, it seemed like it would join zucchini and carrot to complete the trinity of vegetable dessert cakes. From what I gathered, it usually produces a very moist cake with a subtle or non-existent beet flavor because a lot of spices or cocoa are often added to the batter for a flavor kick — one recipe even had a peanut butter icing on a cocoa beet cake.

But, I didn’t want a spice cake or a cocoa cake — I wanted to know what the beet tastes like in a cake. I was happy when I came across the recipe for Nigella Lawson’s Ruby Jewel Cake, found here. Nigella has such a  playful way with words. Ruby Jewel Cake sounds so luxuriant, so vibrant… much more so than the rather thudding Beet Cake, which is what it is at heart. She uses just a bit of nutmeg and dried cranberries for additional flavoring, which sounded nicely matched with the beets.

As I started to make it, I wondered why beet cake has fallen to the wayside, while carrot and zucchini have manage to thrive. I eat beets somewhat regularly, usually roasted and chopped, but once I started grating my beet, my reddening hands gave me one answer. No ordinary scrubbing would clean them. For better or for worse, I remembered this tip that I apparently didn’t forget, and applied it to my red hands — it took several rounds of salt and scrubbing to make them clean again.

So, how did it turn out? Very moist and festive looking, but with a taste that separates the diehard from the epicurean. It tasted like beets all right, but with a slightly astringent raw beet flavor that might overpower some. The cranberry and nutmeg ameliorated it a little by the end of the bite at least. I ate a whole slice in a few bites as I wondered “Do I like this? Hmm… Do I like this?  Hmm…” So, it was decent for me. On the other hand, Chad’s response to his first bite was a worried “Do I have to eat the whole slice?” (rest of that conversation: “No, of course not.” “It looks nice.” “Yeah, thanks.”)

I still wonder, though… Maybe baking the beet first would take the edge off a bit. But I don’t know — the more I try to imagine a popular sweet beet flavoring, the more I’ve come to doubt. Maybe it would be just good as a stealthy moistening ingredient, mixed with cocoa… and topped with peanut butter… or mixed with pineapple and carrots and lots of sugar and topped with lots of cream cheese frosting…

This entry was posted on Friday, May 5th, 2006 at 4:32 pm and is filed under Recipes - Dessert. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.