Happy Baking- Beetroot Brownies

Someone mentioned beetroot brownies to me ages ago and I scrunched up my nose and vowed never to make them, but today that all changed. Even after the horror that was the courgette muffins I decided to give baking with vegetables another go. But let me just make one thing clear, I certainly didn't choose to bake these for a want to have beetroot, in fact the only reason I baked them was because we got some in our veg box last week and had nothing else to do with the yucky purple stuff!

However I'm now ashamed to admit that I'm actually rather found of these little purple beauties, in fact apart from a very subtle hint of beetroot (Which is actually nice) and the colour you wouldn't know what the key ingredient was! 

So this week I dare you all to make these brownies, and hopefully become converted to the purple stuff. (I added all the ingredients to myfitnesspal and they're actually pretty low in calories too- less than 200 per brownie!) Go on...You know you want to!...Everyone loves a brownie!

 I searched the internet and found a few possible recipes I could use but ended up putting together what I thought looked and sounded right...Here's the end result!

This recipe makes 20 brownies- Perfect for surprising your friends with their key ingredient.

Ingredients-
450g Raw beetroot (This went down to about 370g once cooked and peeled)
150g Butter (I used baking stork)
3 Eggs
1tsp Vanilla Extract
50g Cocoa Powder
75g Self Raising Flour
75g Ground Almonds
1tsp Baking Powder
200g Dark Chocolate (I used Bournville)
200g Light Brown Soft Sugar

Method-
1) Preheat your oven to 180C and line a 13 inch by 9 inch baking tin with greaseproof paper. (You can use a couple of smaller tins if you don't have one this size)
2) Chop off the leaves of the beetroot and boil the "Bulb" on the hob until it is cooked through and tender. This time will vary depending on the size of your beetroot's- Mine took about 15 minutes, and were medium sized.
3) Peel and chop the beetroot and purée it in a food processor, or a smoothie maker if you don't have one (Which I don't!)
4) Add the eggs one by one into the food processor, blitzing and scraping down the sides after each addition, then add the vanilla and the butter and blitz again once more.
5) Sift the cocoa powder, self raising flour and baking powder into a bowl, then add the ground almonds and mix through.
6) In a separate bowl melt all of the dark chocolate- I used a microwave for convenience. Then add the sugar to the melted chocolate and mix through. The mixture will become quite stiff, but it will all mix in!
7) Next add the beetroot mixture to the chocolate and sugar and stir until its all combined.
8) Tip the dry ingredients on top of the beetroot and chocolate mixture and fold through carefully.
9) Put the mixture into the lined baking tin and smooth the top out.
10) Bake in the oven for approximately 30 minutes- Or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the middle.
11) Let cool, cut, and become and total beetroot convert!

                     

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