Vegan chocolate, beetroot and walnut cake

Today is my birthday, the day I look forward to all year...

I'm a child when it comes to my birthday, I start counting the days from August.
You would think I have it all planned out, but indecisive as I am about this -on the day- no reservations for dinner have been made and no outfit is chosen.
The only certain thing is that I will most likely be in a little village in East Sussex.
Today is my day, the day that I am allowed to be a child again, sing very loud, blow out candles and dance in the street.
I don't care what people think, I hold on to this joyful occasion and cherish it.
Because you have to hold on to your inner child and keep that little fire burning. That's where creativity thrives and tales are invented.
Today anything is possible, I have wings to fly to magical places, where the grass is greener, the flowers enormous and the food, of course the food delicious and plenty.
Today I fall into a hole in the ground and have tea with talking rabbits.
Today is truly mine.

So on this day I bring you a birthday cake.

The past year a lot of things changed, I started this blog, got married and got to know who my friends are. I feel I grew up just a tiny bit more.

One of the new things in my life is experimenting with vegan cooking, especially for cakes and cookies. I love to make sweet things slightly more healthy and as I don't really have a sweet tooth, I don't make them overly sweet.
As you might have guessed from my Parsnip and apple breakfast cake, I have a thing for putting vegetables into sweets. The classic carrot cake used to be my all time favourite tea time treat, until this cake came along...
This mouth full of yummyness is moist, full of the darkest chocolate and contains one of my favourite veg: beetroot.
Beetroot is incredibly healthy as it is a rich source of antioxidants, nutrients including sodium, magnesium and vitamin C.

I love the way beetroot colors your hands...

What do you need

220 g wholemeal spelt flour

40 g walnuts or pecans

baking powder: 2 heaped tsp

cocoa: 4 heaped tsp

100 g dark chocolate

360 g cooked red beetroot in cubes

50 ml olive oil

50 ml maple syrup

1 cup of soy yoghurt

a pinch of seasalt

• Peel the beetroots and slice into 1 cm cubes, cook until soft and mash.

• Preheat your oven to 160°

• Get your dry ingredients in one bowl and your wet ingredients in another.

• Add the baking powder and soda last as it has to get in contact with the wet ingredients straight away to give the best result.

• Melt the chocolate and add to the wet ingredients, mix the ingredients.

• Add the wet to the dry ingredients and mix.

• Line a spring form with baking paper and dust with some cacao.

• Pour the batter into the springform and put in the oven for 55 minutes.

• Be very careful when you take it out of the oven, let it cool in the tray.

Decorate with some melted chocolate drizzled over, and serve with yoghurt mixed with a teaspoon of beetroot juice

Enjoy with a glass of oat milk or Earl grey tea!

Also check out this vegan chocolate cake by my friend Zita, a fabulous vegetarian and vegan blog. She inspired me to give this vegan thing a go.

29 on the 29th of march

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