The Storehouse at Evanton is a welcome stop on the road to and from Inverness. Not only does it have a fantastic restaurant with freshly made dishes that change every day, it also has a great farm shop for fridge and freezer stocking. Fiona MacInnes makes this amazing chocolate beetroot cake which she sells in the shop and at the restaurant. She said people only had to try a sample before they were buying the cakes - and the raw local beetroot sales also shot up!
Fiona uses Green & Black’s Chocolate Beetroot Cake recipe with the added luxury of cream cheese frosting, chocolate ganache topping and grated white chocolate.
Serves 8
Cake Ingredients:
100 g drinking chocolate
230 g self raising flour
200g castor sugar
100 g dark chocolate – minimum 60% cocoa solids
125 g unsalted butter
250 g cooked beetroot – boil it yourself or buy cooked BUT not pickled beetroot!
3 large eggs, beaten
Cream Cheese Icing
250 g cream cheese
60 g soft unsalted butter
200 g icing sugar
Chocolate Ganache
250 g whipping cream
250 guality semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
Grated white chocolate for decoration
Method:
1. Sift together the drinking chocolate with the self raising flour, then mix in the sugar.
2. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a bowl over hot water.
3. Puree the cooked beetroot in a food processor, then whisk in the beaten eggs
4. Add the beetroot and the chocolate mixtures to the dry ingredients and mix together thoroughly.
5. Pour the mixture into the cake tin. Bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave the cake to stand in its tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool, then split in half.
6. Beat cream cheese icing ingredients together till creamy and spread liberally on bottom half of cake, then add top half.
7. To make the chocolate ganache, place cream in a saucepan over high heat and bring just to a boil, then remove the pan from the heat.
8. Place a damp towel on your counter, place pan of hot cream on the towel then add chopped chocolate to the cream. Beat chocolate and cream vigorously until thoroughly mixed. Allow to cool slightly, then spread onto top of cake. When cool grate with white chocolate.
The Storehouse, Restaurant and Farm Shop, Foulis Ferry, Evanton, Ross-shire IV16 9UX. Tel: 01349830038