other

surprise pudding

servings
8

method

When I was little, a gym opened around our way and it had a juice bar where they served this amazing carrot cake with a twangy sour cream topping. This is one of my efforts at making boring old carrot cake remotely credible. My mate Peter Begg, the friendly Scotsman, suggested I swap carrot for beetroot, which I did, and the result was marvellous. Thanks Pete!

Preheat the oven to 180˚/350˚F/gas 4. Peel your beetroots then coarsely grate them into a bowl. Add the ginger, egg yolks, honey and olive oil in a bowl and add the seeds from 1 vanilla pod. Whisk together, then add the baking powder, polenta, orange zest and juice, salt, allspice, cinnamon and flour. In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the beetroot mixture.

Get yourself a 25cm cake tin or cheesecake mould. Rub with butter and dust with a little flour to stop the cake sticking. You could also line it with greaseproof paper to be really sure. Pour in the mixture then bake in the preheated oven for around 35 minutes until spongy. Test whether it's ready by poking a cocktail stick into it – if it's clean when it comes out you know the cake's done. Allow to cool.

Whisk the crème fraîche with the vin santo, sugar and the seeds from the remaining vanilla pod. Taste and adjust to your liking with a bit more sugar and vin santo. Serve the cake in wedges with a big dollop of the vin santo and vanilla cream.

• from Jamie's Kitchen

ingredients

• 500g raw beetroots, preferably organic, scrubbed clean
• 2 thumb-sized pieces of fresh ginger, finely chopped
• 3 large organic eggs, separated
• 150ml honey
• 170ml olive oil
• seeds from 2 vanilla pods
• 2 heaped teaspoons baking powder
• 100g polenta
zest and juice of 1 orange
• a good pinch of salt
• a good pinch of allspice
• a good pinch of cinnamon
• 150g plain flour
• 200g crème fraîche
• 1 wineglass of vin santo, Marsala or sherry
• 2 heaped tablespoons caster sugar

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1. by Lizzie on Fri 16 Dec 2011 @ 16:04

First of all, it's nothing like the picture - which makes me wonder if Jamie road-tested this. The "surprise" is that it's a wonderful, un-food-like color - a really rich, dark pink. That's the great thing about this tart. The bad thing is - well, it just doesn't taste very good. It was slightly mushy and not nearly sweet enough. So if I tried it agin (and I'm in no rush though I love Jamie's other recipes) I would add a lot of sugar and skip the vanilla, which got swamped by the ginger. I served it at a dinner party (with a Greek yogurt and candied ginger sauce I came up with myself) and the guests pronounced it "interesting" - which as everyone knows is a killer word. But here's what I did think: it might be worth experimenting to make a savory version of this. A beet tart could be a great starter. And the color would certainly get it noticed on any table.

2. by mercedes on Sat 29 Oct 2011 @ 22:44

having worked our way through lots of recipes we thought we would try this one and followed the recipe down to a T however even after 2 hours in the oven the thing was still raw inside! it was definitely a surprise - it turned out disgusting! - and the color was not like it was in the book but we can get over that... it was taste and texture we were after. like one of the other comments, all we got was a pinky purple mush first time ever that we have had a disaster in the kitchen and cannot think why....... is there a typo on any of the ingredients????? would love to give it one more go but hate wasting food and ingredients! will have to think what to do with the creme fraiche now!!!

3. by Nadine on Thu 28 Jul 2011 @ 02:39

What kind of beets we should use? yellow? red? mix? And the polenta...I used the finest but I think I should go bolder. From the pic, I see a granulated texture like a brownie...That is not the result I got. Taste good but bad texture Help please!!

4. by farleighgirl on Thu 19 Aug 2010 @ 09:51

After 2 1/2 hours of boiling, blending and pouring beetroot my kitchen looked like a remake of the Texas Chainsaw massacre. And after all that it tasted overwhelmingly of allspice and orange zest despite my only using half the amount recommended. It was neither sweet nor savoury, was stodgy yet strangely gritty and clung to the roof of the mouth in a paste for ages. A couple of minutes after the whole horrible experience seemed to be over the hidden beetroot flavor surged forth. My 15 year old daughter had 8 friends here for a sleepover who all insisted on trying some because it smelled great. 'Eurgh', 'Weird' and ''Oh that's not nice' was pretty much the view of the whole group. How could it have gone so wrong??

5. by corinna on Wed 24 Mar 2010 @ 09:28

To Jamie
Love watching you on TV. You inspired me to try and cook a full meal with a desert for my husband-the surprise pudding. He was very surprised at the bright pink slop that came out of my oven-I even tried cooking it for longer.Any ideas on why it turned out so bad? Maybe you could come down to Australia and show me how to cook it plus give my some cooking lessons which i am sure my husband would appreciate.Please help me....
Many thanks Corinna

6. by Vaqlerie Benson on Sun 03 Jan 2010 @ 12:26

Dear Jamie,
If you can, could you please send me some recipes (main and desserts) for wheat and dairy free diets. I am a Canadian girl who has just moved to England and am finding myself having to relearn how to cook to accomodate my main squeeze Jaime's food allergies.I love your very easy to read and learning to cook, cookbooks.I use them to teach my granddaughter new recipes. Keep up the good work.
Blessings, Val

7. by Ollie on Mon 05 Oct 2009 @ 17:37

Even though my attempt came out bright bright pink it tasted amazing! Cheers Jamie.

8. by sue on Mon 01 Jun 2009 @ 17:47

I am also looking for the pavlovawith pear and cholate receipe-please help I can only remember some of the ingredients and would love to cook this on saturday for friends coming to dinner.

9. by Michelle on Sun 31 May 2009 @ 20:37

I was just watching Jamie on T.V. making a pavalova with pear and chocolate and nut's and when I looked up the recipe I was told he doesnt make them,what's that about?

10. by Ivan Maminta on Fri 29 May 2009 @ 07:57

Hello there. your recipes are great!

I have a problem getting an RSS feed to my Outlook on the recipes. It keep mentioning a server problem.

Anyway..BIG BIG FAN!

Ivan

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