Yeah, I know it sounds a little bit strange!

I stumbled across this idea on Polkadot Mitten’s blog whilst looking for something else entirely. We often get beetroot in our Riverford veg box but it does sometimes go to waste because we can’t think of anything to do with it besides pickling it.

The recipe does take a while if you’re starting with fresh beetroot as you have to cook that first which takes about an hour but it’s worth it! The cake turned out really nice, really moist and tasty – like a chocolate version of a carrot cake. I think we’ll be making a lot more of these!

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The recipe:

75g cocoa powder or powdered drinking chocolate
180g plain flour
2tsp baking powder
250g caster sugar
250g cooked beetroot
3 large eggs
200ml corn oil
1tsp vanilla extract
Icing sugar for dusting

METHOD

Heat the oven to 180C/Gas 4 and lightly butter a 20cm (8in) round or square cake tin.

Sift the cocoa powder, flour and baking powder into a bowl. Mix in the sugar, and set these dry ingredients aside.

Purée the beetroot in a food processor.

Add the eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla and oil, and whiz until it is smooth.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, add the beetroot mixture and mix it all lightly. Pour into the prepared cake tin.

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean (cover with a loose sheet of foil if it starts to brown at about 30 minutes).

This cake will not rise a great deal, and the top will crack. After removing from the oven, leave it for 15 minutes before taking it out of the the pan. Cool on a wire rack and dust with icing sugar before serving.

So, unfortunately Daisy and I aren’t moving, but today the chickens moved house. Well, actually the house stayed the same, it just moved and they now have a much bigger garden. I spent last week putting together a bigger run for them over an old flower bed that I want to turn into a vegetable patch. The chickens are great at clearing greenery and turning it into tasty eggs; it’s the best form of recycling.

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The chickens’ new pad

You can see in the picture, the veg patch on the right where the chickens were previously. There they were doing a stirling recycling job converting chicken food into perfect fertiliser for next year’s vegetables. I had to dig it over, because they compact it quite well, but it’s already looking good!

I woke up this morning to find I had a flat tyre on my car. There was a nail right through it. My dad came round with his beefy jack and we changed the tyre to the spare, but both are knackered really, so it’s down the tyre shop tomorrow and fork out for some new ones It’s lucky I work where I do, because I can quite easily work at home.

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What’s even better is that we have a lovely Acer tree outside the bedroom window where I work at home, so I get to look out at the lovely autumn colours, our little chickens pecking about and the birds feeding on the feeders. It’s much better than working in the city!

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It annoys me that this blog is being updated so infrequently; I’m terribly sorry about this.

Anyway, today I spent a really nice relaxing afternoon in the garden planting up my Garlic Lover’s Growing Pack that I bought from the The Garlic Farm before I went away. I’m sure it’s not the cheapest way to get the garlic like this, but for a beginner garlic grower, like me, this is just what’s needed. You get instructions on where, how and when to plant the bulbs and even instructions on how to dig them up and then plait them into those strings that you see French people selling.

A few weeks ago I’d moved the chicken house over a few feet which made room on the veg patch for me to plant the garlic. Soon, I hope to move the chicken house completely off the veg patch and onto a patch that we want the chickens to help clear for us to create a new veg patch.

So, tomorrow, I’m the big three-oh. Because my parents’ have dogs, I’m going out for a meal with my family on Monday to celebrate, where there are less likely to be fireworks filling the air with noise.

I know I haven’t posted anything about my holiday that we got back from a week ago now, but I it requires lots of photo preparation — however, I shall endeavour to do that very soon (before I forget I was ever on holiday!).