A Very Beetroot Brownie

Free Bonus Recipe: A deeply chocolatey plant-based brownie

The first brownie recipe I ever developed was for a restaurant and deli looking for a vegan dessert. They also sold a Spanish dark chocolate infused with olive oil that I loved so much I borrowed the pairing for my brownie, which ended up suitably dense and fudgy, with a thin, glossy skin over the surface (a must-have, in my opinion).

Years later, I revisited the recipe for a book I was writing, adapting it into two versions: a beetroot brownie and a carrot blondie, the white chocolate equivalent.

Earlier this week, however, my wife harvested an astonishing number of beetroot she’d somehow managed to squeeze into our tiny garden and challenged me to make a very beetroot brownie. So many, in fact, that I found myself back at the drawing board, reworking the original recipe to juggle the moisture content and make sure the thing actually held together.

She also returned with a handful of blackcurrants and raspberries.
More on those later.

There are a few rules I’ve set myself when it comes to brownies. Firstly, they should always be made with real chocolate. Many recipes rely too heavily on cocoa powder alone, but nothing quite compares to a melted block of good dark chocolate. Cocoa powder is an ingredient extracted from chocolate; a bar of good dark chocolate is a complete ingredient in its own right, carrying not only the flavour of cocoa but also cocoa butter. Interestingly, cocoa butter doesn't contribute a great deal of flavour in its own right, but instead carries and prolongs the flavour of the chocolate itself, softens bitter notes, releases aromas more gradually (as it melts on the palate), and creating the dense, fudgy texture that makes a brownie feel every bit as rich as it tastes.

Secondly, they shouldn’t be overly sweet. A brownie ought to be rich, but not sickly. There’s a fine balance between enough sweetness to balance the bitterness of good dark chocolate, and too much. The advantage of beetroot brownies is the sugary earthiness of a beetroot offers layers to the sweetness, backed up by the use of two different sugars, icing sugar (powdered)* for a better skin, and soft brown, for more fruity, molasses notes.

* Take care not to use an icing sugar that’s been stabilised with corn starch (an anti caking agent). This will stop it fully dissolving quickly enough to form a delicate skin when baking.

And finally, they should avoid eggs, purely because I happen to be allergic to them and would quite like to enjoy a brownie myself too.

As for the beetroot, most recipes use only a modest amount. This one doesn’t.

By finely grating and squeezing the beetroot first, it’s possible to work a surprising quantity into the batter without making the brownies heavy or gummy. The result is intensely chocolatey, wonderfully fudgy and generously studded with chunks of dark chocolate that melt into little pockets throughout.

Considering this recipe was entirely improvised on the spot, I was surprisingly pleased with the results and thought I’d share it as an impromptu bonus recipe here at The Black Butter Club.

Oh, and those blackcurrants I mentioned earlier? There’s a bonus-bonus recipe for a simple coulis to serve alongside the brownie. It avoids the need for cream or crème fraîche and, with its sharp fruitiness, transforms the whole thing into something remarkably reminiscent of a wonderfully fudgy Black Forest gâteau.

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Ingredients

• 6-7 medium beetroot (yielding 250g - 300g once peeled, finely grated and squeezed)

• 200g dark chocolate (70%)

• 100g vegan butter

• 50ml neutral oil

• 120g icing sugar

• 180g soft brown sugar

• 1 tsp vanilla paste

• 150ml unsweetened plant milk

• 140g self-raising flour (or 140g plain flour with 2 tsp baking powder)

• 35g Dutch-process cocoa powder

• ½ tsp fine sea salt

• 100g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C fan and line a 20cm square baking tin with baking parchment.

Peel and finely grate the beetroot. Wrap it in a clean tea towel or muslin cloth and squeeze out much of the excess juice until you’re left with 250–300g of grated beetroot. (Don’t discard the juice. See the note below.)

Melt the chocolate and vegan butter together over a pan of barely simmering water. Remove from the heat, stir in the oil, then whisk in the icing sugar until smooth. Add the soft brown sugar and whisk again until the mixture becomes glossy.

Stir in the vanilla and plant milk.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder and salt before gently folding them into the mixture. Finally, stir through the chopped dark chocolate and grated beetroot until evenly distributed.

Spread the batter into the prepared tin, smoothing the surface with the back of a spoon or an offset spatula before sprinkling with a pinch more salt. This mixture should be thick! But not so much that it can’t pour (slowly).

Bake for 30 minutes. The surface should develop a crackled crust, whilst the centre still retains the slightest wobble. A skewer inserted near the middle should emerge with moist, fudgy crumbs attached rather than wet batter (but won’t come out clean like other cakes).

Leave the brownies to cool completely in the tin before refrigerating for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight, and portion with hot knife.

A Note on the Beetroot

Squeezing the grated beetroot may seem unusual, but it allows a much larger quantity to be incorporated into the batter without making it overly wet. Rather than hiding the beetroot, this recipe celebrates it, finding another delicious way to make use of a generous harvest.

And if you’re anything like me, don’t throw away the beetroot juice. It’s too beautiful to waste. Ferment it into beet kvass or kanji, whisk it into a vinaigrette, add it to bread or pasta dough, or reduce it into a vivid syrup for desserts.

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Blackcurrant Coulis

The richness of these brownies is wonderfully balanced by something sharp and bright. During summer, I almost always reach for blackcurrants, whose tartness cuts through the chocolate and transforms the whole dessert into something reminiscent of a wonderfully fudgy Black Forest gâteau. Unlike many summer berries, blackcurrants possess a remarkable depth; their bright acidity underpinned by dark, almost vinous, resinous flavours that give them a savoury complexity, making them a natural partner for rich chocolate.

Ingredients

• 200g fresh or frozen blackcurrants

• 50g caster sugar (or to taste)

• 2 tbsp water

• 1 tsp lemon juice

Method

Place the blackcurrants, sugar and water into a small saucepan over a medium heat. Cook for 5–8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the berries begin to collapse.

Add the lemon juice, then blend until smooth. Pass through a fine sieve if you’d prefer a silky coulis, or leave it rustic with a few seeds if you enjoy a little texture.

Allow to cool before serving.

Variation: This works just as well with redcurrants, raspberries or strawberries. Each brings something completely different. Blackcurrants and redcurrants provide a bright acidity that beautifully offsets the richness of the chocolate, whilst raspberries and strawberries offer a softer, fruitier sweetness.

To Serve

Spoon a little coulis over each brownie just before serving.

I highly recommend making a tray of this brownie to keep in the coldest spot of your fridge. Nothing beats a small square of it with a spoonful of lively coulis after a long day in the heat. So why not treat yourself this weekend?

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This has been a bonus recipe for The Black Butter Club readers. If you enjoyed it, you can find all sorts of techniques at my Recipe Index here.

Thank you for joining me, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Sam