Better Beetroot Brownies

I loved the idea in the recipe that a bit more than 1 kg of cake contains  500 grams of beetroot, but when you eat it - beetroot taste just disappears together with gilt. All is left is just moist, deep, melting in your mouth, dark chocolate...

You need:

500 g beetroot. Washed, boiled in water until tender, or baked in wrapped in foil in the oven. Cool it down, peel.
100 g oil (original recipe says rapeseed, I used sunflower)
250 g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa), melted
3 large eggs
200 g golden caster sugar (I used regular white)
2 tsp vanilla extract (I used couple of teaspoons of vanilla sugar)
140 g plain flour
75 g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
50 g walnut, roughly chopped

Heat the oven to 180C.

Chop one third of beetroot or grate, other two thirds - put in the blender or food processor and blitz to a paste. You might want to add one of the eggs to blitz together, as beetroot sticks to the wall of the food processor. 

Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla together until it is all nice and fluffy. For this use the biggest bowl, as that is where the rest of ingredients will go in. Carefully add beetroot puree and melted chocolate. Then add flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. Now finally add chopped beetroot and walnuts. 

Pour the mixture into prepared tin and bake for 35 - 45 minutes depending on thickness of your bake. Original recipe said 20-25 minutes, but I am too scared of salmonellae to bake it less than half an hour... 

Allow to cool. Decorations are not necessary - the top has nice smooth velvety finish. I dusted with icing sugar. If you have  - can decorate with fresh berries (raspberries or blueberries).

Recipe taken and amended to my taste from BBC Good Food Magazine, March 2013, page 109.