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Beetroot Seed Cake

Beetroot cake is the hero of vegetable-based cakes – moist, tasty and full of goodness. Nigel Slater shows you how.

By bbcfood · From Open Recipes · 15 ingredients
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Beetroot Seed Cake

Why it works: Sunflower and beetroot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 46 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beetroot Seed Cake

Serves about 8
Prep30 min
Cook1 hr

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

986Calories
26 gProtein
46 gFat
121 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 13 ingredients. The other 5 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Sunflower1 oz (28g) hulled165
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Sunflower Oilnot in our table0
Beetrootnot in our table0
Seednot in our table0
Pumpkinnot in our table0
Poppy Seednot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By bbcfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sunflower + beetroottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together46 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Sunflower + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together352 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + sunflowertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together239 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cinnamon + beetroottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cinnamon, sunflower, sugar, egg, beetroot):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cinnamon, sunflower, sugar, egg, beetroot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.