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Chocolate Orange Beetroot Cake

An alternative carrot cake, with sweet roasted beetroot contrasted with bitter dark chocolate genache.

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Beetroot and chocolate work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and 53 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 8

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

  • For the cake mix.
  • For the Genache.

Directions

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

By bbcgoodfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Beetroot + chocolatetop 14% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Cocoa powder + chocolatetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,587 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  3. Olive + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Flour + raisintop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,071 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Beetroot + orangetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the raisin

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

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Pumpkinbetter flavor fit
  3. Orangebetter flavor fit
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beetroot, olive, egg, butter, sugar, flour, cocoa powder. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).