Chocolate Beet Cake With Milke Chocolate Ganache

To prep. pull butter and eggs and bring to room temperature. Also, butter and flour two 8" cake pans.First, peel the beets, cut into small pieces and cover with water (just enough that the beets are barely covered) and cook until beets are tender (30-40 minutes). If you have a lot of excess water left, drain so that only 1/2 cup remains with the beets. Puree beets in a blender until no large chunks are left. Set aside to cool.While beats are cooking, combine 1/4 cup of the butter with the ounce of chocolate. Melt and whisk the chocolate and butter together. Set aside to cool slightly.Preheat oven to 375.In either a large bowl or your stand-mixer bowl, combine remaining softened butter and sucanat, beating with a paddle until well combined. Next, beat in eggs and vanilla until the mixture comes together, scrapping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Add in melted chocolate/butter and beet puree and continue to beat. Sift together the dry ingredients and add to the batter, beating until everything is well combined.

Pour evenly into cake pans and bake for 25-35 minutes (a toothpick should come out clean when the cake is checked.) Set aside for 10 minutes, then loosen both cakes around the edges and flip onto pieces of parchment to let cool.To make ganache (which I did while the beets cooked), place chocolate chunks in a large bowl. Bring the heavy cream almost to a boil (when the bubbles form around the edge of the pan), pull from heat and pour oven the chocolate.

Let sit for 2 minutes and the whisk the ganache smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator until chilled and set (2-3 hours.) Once ganache is chilled, taking a hand mixer (or a spoon), whip ganache so that it becomes slightly fluffy (only 1-2 minutes with a hand mixer.)To assemble the cake (once the cakes and ganache are cooled), take one cake and place on your serving plate. The cake is really moist and you may have to take a knife to loosen the cake from the parchment paper. Cover the first cake with 1/2" layer of ganache and place the second cake on top. From here, take a healthy scoop of ganache and crumb coat the cake with a thin layer.

Place in refrigerator for 15 minutes, remove, and cover cake with remaining ganache. Keep in refrigerator until ready to serve!