My friend Omaira is a great writer and journalist, and you can read her work here on her blog. She has written extensively about her son, Hermes, who has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). Hermes is on a strict regimen of meds and diet, and I have decided to bake a cake that doesn’t use any sugar and salt for him. Omaira is a wonder woman, and I am very happy that the cake was a success with the Mom (and the boys too!).

The first time I actually tasted a chocolate cake made with beetroot was in July, back in Kuala Lumpur. My sister baked us a cake for Raya (Eid) and I have to say that I love the natural sweetness of the beetroot, and it goes very well with chocolate. I adapted this from several recipes I found online (and the original Jamie Oliver cake that my sister baked).

You can use agave syrup or maple syrup as an alternative to the honey, and the olive oil makes the cake richer in flavour. But you can use a simple vegetable oil if you so wish.

You can also drench the cake in more chocolate (in the form of chocolate ganache or chocolate sauce).

Ingredients:

• 100ml of good quality Greek extra virgin olive oil
• 125ml of light flower honey
• 50g of dark chocolate (at least 70%), chopped
• 250g of raw beetroot, finely grated
• 3 eggs
• 375g of cake flour
• 2 tsps of baking powder
• 5 tbsps of cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp of desiccated coconut

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
2. In a big bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder, and mix.
3. In a saucepan, gently heat the olive oil on low heat. Mix the honey and the chopped chocolate pieces into the pan and melt completely. Remove from heat.
4. Add the grated beets, and stir. Leave to cool.
5. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs together, and then add into the beetroot-chocolate mix and  stir thoroughly.
6. Add the flour mixture from (2) and mix until it becomes a gooey batter.
7. Grease a cake tin with some oil, and coat the cake tin with the desiccated coconut. This will prevent the batter from sticking to the tin.
8. Pour the batter into the tin.
9. If there are leftover desiccated coconut, you can scatter some at the top too.
10. Bake in the oven for about 25 – 30 minutes.
11. Remove from the oven, and leave to cool on a rack. Remove from the tin, and you can eat it as it is.