beetroot and tumbling chocolate bundt - a showstopper cake for the chocoholic

... or 'escape from chocolate mountain' - as The Viking likes to call it!

never mind the Great British Bake Off, this weekend marks the return of the Aby Village Show and the annual baking, crafting and gardening shenanigans of the local hoodlums... oh they may look like ordinary, innocent village folk but they are fiercely competitive with an evil streak for not taking any prisoners when it comes to dishing out sympathy.  You're either a winner or you may as well climb back into your hole... Oh yes, it all has the dusted sheen of your average country village fete with the bunting and the little white-haired old ladies who wouldn't harm a fly but believe me when i say that beneath the surface lies evil.  True, proper, jam-covered evil...

I baked all day yesterday; this cake, a lemon curd swiss roll, a speciality bread with sun-dried tomatoes and walnuts and some orange blossom chocolate creams all of which I will share with you over the next few days... but as for now, i'm up early and off to lay out my entries in the village hall.  I will update this post with the results later this afternoon...

sun-dried tomato, walnut, honey and rosemary loaf

lemon curd cream Swiss Roll

orange blossom chocolate creams

beetroot and tumbling chocolate bundt - a showstopper cake for the chocoholic
as I outlined last month here on the blog, the categories for this years show have been changed to much chagrin amongst the baking cognoscente of Belleau and Aby but one of the bakes has the heading of 'a showstopper cake for the chocoholic' and I really couldn't resist.  Now, if you know me, I'm not really one for the stopping of the show and I prefer a plain, what-you-see-is-what-you-get the of cake but i'm always up for the competition so i've turned my hand to this little number.  The basic bundt is a recipe i've made before here in the blog but I loved the idea

for the cake
250g plain chocolate broken up

3 large free range eggs

200g light muscovado sugar

100ml sunflower oil

1tsp vanilla extract

100g self raising flour

1/2 tsp bicarb

1/2 tsp baking powder

50g ground almonds

200g raw beetroot - finely grated

50g cox's apples - finely grated

for the icing
100g icing sugar
100g cream cheese
beetroot juice (left over from above)
50g dark chocolate - melted

a selection of chocolates for tumbling

- melt the chocolate (i did it in a microwave but a double boiler is the traditional way)

- whisk together the egg, sugar and oil until smooth and creamy, stir in the vanilla extract then fold in the flour, bicarb, baking powder and ground almonds

- grate the raw beetroot and apple, squeeze out most of the liquid (set aside for the icing) and fold it into the cake mix along with the cooled melted chocolate

- pour the mixture into your cake tin (I used my 25cm round bundt tin) and bake on 170 for 40 mins - 1hr.

- once out of the oven and cooled you can ice to your fancy... i've simply used the beetroot juice beaten with some icing sugar and cream cheese to create this simple yet eye-popping icing... then i've taken advantage of the hole in the centre of the bundt to create a vessel for the mixed chocolates which i've let tumble gently down the sides of the bunt... 

eat and of course, enjoy!

from Belleau Kitchen

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