28 July 2016

Recipe: Raw beetroot cake

It´s always great to have a tasty, easy dessert up your sleeve. You need a few hours preparation time for this one, to allow the base and topping to set (and you can leave it for less time in the fridge to set if you want to!), but the only equipment that you need is a good blender.

Although this dessert is quite high in calories (3583 total or 298 per serving, this recipe serves 12 small portions), most of these calories derive from the nuts and dates. Remember, not all calories are “bad” – nuts bring protein to your body (it´s important to include sources of protein in your meals when following a plant-based diet). Nuts also contain unsaturated fats which are great for bringing balance to your cholesterol and can help lead to a healthy heart.

Some beetroots are quite earthy in flavour and others might be more sweet, so when you are making this recipe, I suggest that you taste the topping and add an extra tablespoon of rice syrup, if you find the dessert a little earthy and want to increase the sweetness. The dates bring natural sugar to the base.

When you buy beetroot, it is great if you can find some with the leaves still attached, as you can add these leaves to your salad.

Ingredients

BASE
2 cups toasted cashews, ground
½ cup almonds blitzed into chunks
¼ cup cacao powder
½ cup soaked pitted dates
2 tbsp ground flax seeds

TOPPING
2½ cups raw beetroot, peeled and roughly chopped
2 tbsp rice syrup
¼ cup desiccated coconut
5 tbsp coconut oil, melted

Method

Combine all the ingredients for the base (cashews, almonds, cocoa powder, dates and flax seeds) in a blender until smooth. Press down the base mixture into a cake tin, so that it is one centimetre thick. Pop the base into the fridge and allow it to become firm – maybe leave for one or two hours.

Place the beetroot into the blender and pulse for 30 seconds to make the beetroot into very small pieces. Add in the rice syrup and continue to blend until the mixture becomes very smooth. Add the dessicated coconut and coconut oil and process for a further minute or two (do not overwork blender though). Spoon the topping mixture over the base. Then cover the cake and place back into the fridge (on a flat surface) for about 2 hours, until very firm.

Remove from the fridge just before serving and cut into squares. Serve topped with a sprinkle of shredded coconut and a sprig of mint or a spiralised beetroot (a swirl)!

We serve dessert twice a week here at La Crisalida Retreats. For more information about the food that we serve click here, or our about our detox and weightloss retreats, please click here. More recipes are available on our blog page or you can also purchase our Summer Food cookbook.

About the author

Lisa: Lisa is one of the founders of La Crisalida Retreats. She is an Epidemiologist, therapeutic hatha and yin yoga teacher and also teaches mindfulness meditation. Lisa has studied NLP and hypnosis, as well as nutrition (she designs the menus).