From: isar@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
Subject: Devil's Food Cake with Beets
Date: 14 Oct 92 21:26:58 -0300
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada


  Hello all,

Well, here goes the much promised recipe for the Devil's food cake with beets.
I'm sorry it took me so long, but I've been smacked with a particularly nasty
case of the flu.. Anyway... please enjoy..this cake is a bit expensive to make,
but it is so rich it's pure heaven...


ABSOLUTELY DIVINE DEVIL'S FOOD CAKE


CAKE

3 squares (3 oz) unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 can (8 1/4 oz) julienne beets
1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temp.
2 1/2 cups firmly packed golden brown sugar
3 large eggs at room temp.
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup buttermilk


FUDGE FROSTING

2 cups whipping cream
1 pound semisweet chocolate, chopped
2 teaspoons vanilla

BAKING PAN

Two 9 x 1 1/2 inch or 9 x 2 inch round
layer cake pans



CAKE


  Preheat oven to 350 F.  Grease bottom and sides of pans.  Dust w/ flour and 
shake out excess.  Melt chocolate in double boiler over hot water.  Set aside 
to cool slightly.  Drain beet juice into small bowl.  Place beets on cutting
board and chop into very small pieces.  Add to beet juice and set aside.

  Beat butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla in a large bowl with an electric
mixer on high speed until very fluffy, about 5 min., scraping sides 
occasionally.  Reduce speed to low and beat in melted chocolate.

  Stir together flour, baking soda and salt in a medium-size bowl.  With mixer
on low speed, alternately beat flour in fourths and buttermilk in thirds into
chocolate mixture, beginning and ending w/ flour.  Mix until incorporated, 
about 1 min.  Add beets and juice and beat at medium speed until blended,
about 1 min.  The batter will be thin and you will see pieces of beets.

  Divide the batter equally between the two prepared pans.  Bake in the 350
oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until cake tester inserted in center of cake
comes out clean.  DO NOT OVERBAKE or cake will be dry ( crime of lese-
-majeste').  Cool cakes in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes and then invert
onto racks.  If desired, cake layers may be wrapped in foil and kept at room
temp. overnight, or they may be frozen.  Defrost wrapped cake at room temp.
before frosting.


FROSTING


  Heat cream in a medium-size saucepan just until it comes to a boil.  Remove
from heat and add chocolate and vanilla, stirring until mixture is smooth and
chocolate is melted.   Do not let your SO/children  wander into
the kitchen at this stage.  From practical experience, I find that
all members of your household will gravitate towards the kitchen at this
time and adopt the sad hungry eyes of a Biafran refugee.  Don't give in.
Transfer wonderful-looking mixture to a plastic or glass bowl (not metal) and
refrigerate, stirring every 10 minutes until mixyure is thick as pudding,
about 50 to 60 min.  At this point, the frosting will begin to set up very
quickly.  Leave in refrigerator and stir every 5 min. until frosting is as
thick as fudge, about 15 more minutes.  Alternatively, the frosting may be
placed over ice water and stirred constantly until spreading consistency.
If it begins to get too thick, remove it from the water.

  To assemble the cake, place one cake layer top-side down on serving platter.
Spread w/ a third of the frosting and top with the second layer, bottom-side
up.  Spread remaining frosting over top and sides.  Let stand at room temp.
for frosting to set.

  The frosted cake may be held at room temperature, uncovered, overnight or
refrigerated up to two days (Good luck, mine never lasts that long).


              ***********************************


The above was reproduced (w/out permission) from "The Dessert Lover's Cookbook"
by Marlene Sorosky (Harper and Row).  I don't think she would mind me sharing
this recipe.  It should belong to the collective annals of the Human Race, like
some sort of archetypal dream  (you can tell I'm a bad chocoholic).

Please do let me know how it turns out.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.


Isabel R.

  
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking