Paranoia Cake Protects Self From Mind Rays

Done and done. Now to feed it whisky for the next 2 months.

Oh is that teasing? OK. Here’s a cake shot too.

Cor blimey look at the raisins on that. Etc.

Solstice cake is almost ready for launch.

Last year I went into the winterval-cake-making-process in some detail, dissecting the various recipes I had and trying to establish what made a particularly wintry fruit cake. I found that Mrs Beeton had a higher cake:fruit ratio than Delia, so I tried that. It was good, but I didn’t think it was quite fruity enough. So this year, I’m going back to Delia’s classic recipe, but tweaking it for my own sordid purposes.

Right now, my dried fruits are soaking. I have 450g raisins, 175g sultanas, and 100g each of chopped mixed peel, glacé cherries (natural colour btw, none of this fake red crap) and glacé ginger, all stirred together with a glug of whisky. It smells luscious.

I cannot wait to get started. I’ve not baked enough recently… so it’s probably a good thing that next week is National Baking Week. I would have held on to make this cake as the climactic end to the week but if I don’t make it now, I won’t be able to feed it anywhere near enough booze before it gets decorated. So instead, it can be a teaser.

Beetroot & Chocolate Cake

Finally, after months of waiting, I managed to get my hands on some raw beetroot. I’d been intending to make a beetroot and chocolate cake for ages… so I made this experimental number. It turned out brilliantly – a really juicy cake, nicely chocolatey, with just a hint of dirt. Lovely.

The pictures just came out looking like any old slab of cake, so here I’m treating you to an in-pan shot of the beetroot mixture as the marg is being melted into it.

It’s great once you mix it in with the chocolate as it bears a striking resemblance to puréed human flesh (if you believe the movies, at any rate). Also… in the interests of dietary requirements (after the gluten-free success last time) I note that this cake is dairy-free and eggless, but obviously check all your labels before cooking if you’re not sure. It also has plenty of vitamins A and E – respectively, 12 and 18% of the RDA, I calculate, if you’re dividing the cake into 8. But that is about 300kcal per slice, so don’t be scoffing it all back and blaming your podge on me.

Beetroot & Chocolate Cake
Makes a 9×13″ cake (use a baking dish).

2 medium/150g fresh raw beetroot, grated
1 cup/175g sugar
7 tbsp/125g margarine
1/2 tsp salt
pinch Chinese five-spice
1 cup water
2 cups/230g plain white flour
1/4 cup/30g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Place the beets, sugar, butter (or equivalent), salt, spice and water in a saucepan. Heat and simmer until the butter is melted, then put to one side to cool.

Sieve the remaining ingredients together in a large bowl. Grease a 9×13″ baking dish. When the beetroot mixture is merely warm, rather than scalding, mix into the dry ingredients. Pour into the prepared dish, and bake in a 160C oven for 35-40 minutes until a skewer/cocktail stick comes out clean.