Gluten-Free & Vegan Beetroot Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

For the cake

• 1 big beetroot
• 3 cups of flour (I used 2 cups of homemade rice flour and 1 cup of Jerusalem artichoke flour - but you can use any flour you like)
• 1 1/2 cup of homemade apple sauce
• 1/2 to 1 cup of sweetener (I used date syrup)
• 6 tbsp. of raw cocoa
• A pinch of Himalayan salt

For the filling

• 1 cup of plant-based milk 
• A few tbsp. of flour of your choice (I used buckwheat flour)
• Sweetener of your choice
• Optional for flavour: vanilla powder or any other essential oil of your choice e.g. orange flavour, lemon/lime juice, cooca powder etc.

1. Cook the beetroot until soft. (I used pressure cooker as it saves a lot of time). Then let it cool down and peel off the skin. 

2. Put it into the blender and blend until purée consistency.

3. Preheat over to 190C.

4. Place all the ingredients for the cake together with the beetroot into the bowl and mix until everything is well combined and smooth.

5. Grease a baking tin with coconut oil (if have sililcon cake mold you don't have to do it) and pour in the mixture. Bake for 20-25 min.

*I used 2 silicon cake molds to make 2 layers. If you want to use 1, later you will have to cut the cake in half.

6. For the filling, pour plant-based milk into the sauce pan and bring it to the boil. 

7. While it is still boiling, take a whisk and slowly add flour constantly mixing it with a spoon. This will create smooth consistency. 

* Add as much flour as you want the filling consistency to be. 

9. Take it off the hob and add sweetener and other optional ingredients. 

10. Pour 1/2 of the filling onto one half of the cake. 

*If you baked the cake in 2 cake tins you can cut off the top layer from both cakes so they can easily stick together when pouring the filling.

*Put one half of cake with the filling into the fridge so it can harden and then you can place the other half of the cake on top, or you can do it straight away but the filling may be too soft. 

11. When two halves are sticked together add the remaining filling on top. 

*I added cocoa powder to the other half of the filling to make it chocolate.

12. Decorate the cake. 

*I used the cut off cake's top and formed little balls and added some cocoa nibs and cocoa powder on top.

Enjoy!