Category: Lifestyle. Title: Best diet for weddings eat cake!.

Best diet for weddings eat cake!

No need to worry about having to give up chocolate so you can get into your wedding dress at just 320 cals per slice, you can still have a little of what you fancy and look stunning on your big day!

I came across the recipe for Chocolate Fudge Cake and was shocked find it had an unusual "secret" ingredient - beetroot! Chocolate and beetroot are not something you normally find in harmony, but they work! A bit like strawberries and black pepper and chocolate and chilli I guess! The beetroot creates that fudgy consistency required for this delicious cake.

For those of you interested in the recipe, I've adapted it from the Cook Yourself Thin book - so here's my version:

The beauty of this recipe is that it in incredibly rich and deep in flavour, yet hardly uses any flour or fat. The beetroot is not a touch of madness, it actually provides the gungy texture that makes a great fudge cake and some natural pink sweetness too!

Prep time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: Allow 2 hours (but in my fan assisted oven 1.5 hours and it's done)
Calories: 320 per slice - cake serves 16


Cake mix ingredients:
300g good quality dark chocolate
150g good quality milk chocolate (I have reduced the amount of dark chocolate and replaced with some milk chocolate to suit my family preferences. If you like dark chocolate - use 450g of just dark chocolate)
3 medium free range eggs
250g light muscovado sugar
1 vanilla pod, cut lengthways and seeds scraped out
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons clear honey
40g self-raising flour
40g plain flour
Quarter of a teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Quarter of a teaspoon of salt
30g coca powder
50g ground almonds
300g raw beetroot, peeled and finely grated
100ml strong black coffee
30ml sunflower oil

For the topping:
200g good quality dark chocolate
150g good quality milk chocolate (I have reduced the amount of dark chocolate and replaced with some milk chocolate to suit my family preferences. If you like dark chocolate - use 350g of just dark chocolate)
3 tablespoons strong black coffee
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3 tablespoons clear honey

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C / Fan assisted 140 degrees C

With the help of a brush and a tiny bit of sunflower oil, grease the surface of a round 20cm diameter x 8cm high loose-bottomed tin and set aside.

Melt the chocolate for the cake mix gently in a bowl over a pan of simmering water until all dissolved, then set aside to cool.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar, the scraped-out vanilla seeds, the maple syrup and the honey for 3 minutes with an electric hand whisk until pale and quite fluffy.

Gently fold in the flours, bicarbonate of soda, salt, cocoa and ground almonds until fully incorporated.

Using some kitchen paper, dab the grated beetroot thoroughly to remove some of the excess moisture. Fold in the beetroot, cooled chocolate, coffee and oil with the help of a spatula until thoroughly mixed together.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and cook in the middle of the oven for 1 hour 30 mins (In my fan assisted oven, I check it after 1 hour as this is often enough). After this time, cover the cake with foil and bake for another 30 mins.

Test the cake by inserting a skewer into the centre to see if it comes out clean (although this cake is so moist that even when the cake is fully cooked, the skewer comes out looking slightly messy). Leave to cool on a wire rack.

To make the fudge topping:
Melt the chocolate gently in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, then remove from heat and add the coffee and vanilla essence. At this stage the chocolate will seize up slightly, but it will relax back once you add the honey and gently mix in.

Set aside to cool for 15 minutes before icing the cake.

To decorate the top you can use whatever you fancy, but I like using real roses, which I plant into the cake with a bit of stem left on.

Tip: Leave yourself plenty of time to make this cake because it is quite a lengthy recipe. The cake is best eaten when it is slightly warm and it is also really important to ice it at the last minute or the icing can lose its shine. If it does, simply pop the whole cake back into a warm oven (say 100 degrees C) for 10 mins to bring back the gloss of the icing.

You can freeze this cake, also long as you put it away before icing. Simply defrost when needed and ice at the last minute.

Yummy! I hope you enjoy this as much as I do x

If you think my tips are useful, and need further tips to help plan your wedding or event, please do give me a call on 07974 350 950 or drop me an email via enquiries@eventwishes.com

Date written: Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:45:57 +0100

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