This is another recipe from Harry Eastwood’s Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache. I still don’t really get this book. It’s ostensibly got a diet angle, but replacing the flour in your cakes with rice flour and vegetables isn’t exactly slimming when you’re still liberally using sugar. But anyway, for people like me who like to eat well without agonising over every bite, this is a rather lovely cake.

I do not like coffee. I’ve never drunk coffee – well, bar one experiment as a child, where I added several spoons of sugar, and held my nose as I didn’t like the smell. I still don’t particularly like the smell, but I have a soft spot for coffee cake, on occasion. It reminds me of visiting my grandparents in Kew when I was about four.

This one was made for the 70th of my father-in-law, Bryan. We got stuck in on Friday, and, in a semi-coincidence, visited Kew on the Saturday. I’ve not been there for about 35 years, and even saw the cafe that had abided in my mind’s eye as the origin of the coffee walnut cakes.

Anyway, Eastwood calls this “Coffee and Walnut Courage Cake”. But really it’s just a carrot cake disguised as a coffee and walnut cake. Carrot cake is traditionally flavoured with cinnamon and possibly iced with a lemony cream-cheese icing, but this cake proves there really is no reason to not cake it other directions.

The mixture doesn’t rise terribly well, so this does really need the size of cake tins Eastwood specifies: two 18cm diameter, 5cm deep jobs, preferably loose-bottomed. Greased and lined.

Preheat oven 180C.

200g rice flour
120g walnuts
3 eggs
160g light muscovado sugar
250g of finely grated carrot
2t baking powder
1/4t salt
5T coffee essence.

Quick discussion of the coffee essence. The book says “5 tbsp (125ml)”. This is a little confusing as 1T = 15ml, so 5T = 75ml.

Also – why worry about “coffee essence”. You’re more likely to have real or instant coffee in your kitchen already, so just make a bunch of strong coffee, filter it if it’s got grains, then reduce it.

Anyway. Whizz up the nuts and flour in a processor.
Beat the eggs and sugar, preferably with an electric hand blender, for about 3 minutes, until smooth and increased in volume.
Beat in the baking powder, salt, and coffee, then also add the carrot and flour/nut mix. Mix by hand until evenly blended.

Divide mixture into tins and bake 30 mins. Cool for 10 mins in tins, then remove and allow to cool completely.

Icing:
50g unsalted butter
250g icing sugar
75g mascarpone
Slug of strong coffee

Soften the butter with hand blender, then add the mascarpone and coffee. Sieve in the icing sugar, and mix by hand to stop it flying everywhere. You can give it a buzz with the hand blender when it’s combined to make it extra smooth and creamy. Cool in the fridge for 15 mins before using the sandwich and ice the cooled cakes.

Decorate with walnut halves.

I love brownies. They’re the quintessential tray-baked chocolate hit. Although I’ve got another recipe I’m very happy with, it’s always nice to try something new.

These are from Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache, a recipe book I’ve got very mixed feelings about. Indeed, I don’t think I’ve ever reacted quite so strongly to a recipe book. Look, I’m going to have a rant ok? I know I should probably do it on my blog, but well, I’m doing it here, so tough.

This book was a Christmas present from my mum, and although in many ways I’m very much in a suitable demographic – like the author, Harry Eastwood, I love cakes (obviously), and I’m fascinated by using vegetables in cakes – in others I’m just so far off, I’m clashing. Notably, possibly, because I’m a male who’s not interested in “cooking myself thin” – to me, food is about balance, with indulgence in the form of decent home-made cakes and puddings balanced by good wholesome nutritious meals.

The most irritating thing about this book is its insistence on photos of Eastwood and her chums, and their offspring. Too many photos of them. I blame Sir Jamie. As much as I have a deep admiration for Jamie Oliver, arguably he started the trend for cookbooks with loads of photos of the smirking chef. In the 1970s and 1980s, the cookbooks I grew up maybe had a photo of Delia or Prue on the cover, then inside you might have had pics of the food. Much as I don”t want a few dozen pics of Jamie and his mates smirking in his recipe books, I don’t want them of Eastwood and her crew here. I don’t want to see the cook with her fancy necklace and sunglasses and fairy wings (and, hell, adults shouldn’t really even wear fairy wings – at least not outside the confines of a festival, and even there it’s questionable). Pics of food – great. Pics of cook and friends – not so great.

That’s not her only crime though. She anthropomorphises her cakes, frequently referring to them as “she”. And frequently, painfully mangling metaphors. In the case of these brownies, we get “This recipe is dangerous. Sinful and completely irresistible, this brownie is so wicked you could drown in it. Like a bad man, this is a girl’s deathbed. If it were poison, you would still be glad you’d tried it.” Eh? So it’s a body of water, that’s a man, who’s a bed, which is poisonous? What are you on about Harry?

Still, ranting aside, a recipe book is only as good as its recipes. So until I’ve tried a few more of the recipes in the book, I should chill out on the ranting…. except I can’t. Jeez. I’m going to have to cover the irritating pics up. And even just glancing at her descriptions of cakes as female is making me grind my teeth. “She’s everything you’re not allowed.” No she isn’t. She’s an it. It’s a cake. You are allowed cake.

Anyway, the recipe. The brownies. Well, compared to my double-choc ones, making these is arduous. My double choc ones are a five minute job, these are a half-hour job. So in my thinking they should be six times as good. Well they’re not. They’re very nice indeed, and another great way to use beetroot – which combines so well with chocolate. Plus, they do get a lovely flavour from the use of ground hazelnuts. But they’re just a bit convoluted to make.

After that rant, I’m not sure I can face typing out the recipe in full… here’s a simplified, tweaked version.

Preheat the oven to 160C, or 140C if you’ve got a fan oven.

Grind 100g of hazelnuts in a processor until they’re as fine as you can manage. Set them aside, then grind up 150g dark choc in the processor too. Leave it in the processor bowl.

Grind Peel and dice 400g of beetroot, and microwave it for 10 mins in a bowl with a little water, and clingfilm over the top. (I didn’t grow up with a microwave, so that’s a nifty lesson.)

Whisk together 3 eggs, 250g light soft brown sugar and 1/4 t salt in a roomy bowl with a handheld electric whisk. Keep going until it’s trebled in volume (about 5 mins).

Add the hazelnuts, 2 T white rice flour, 70g cocoa, 2 t baking powder and 1 t vanilla extract to the egg mix and combine.

When the beetroot is cooked, add it to the processor, and puree it. The heat of the beet will melt the ground choc. When all nicely pureed and melted, fold this mix into the egg mix.

You can sprinkle it with some more chopped hazelnuts, then bake for 35 mins.