Ely Sugarbeet Cake

From monstrosity to deliciousness.

Something grisly is buried in the fenland fields, gnarled and ugly as a monstrous bulldog / wasp hybrid chewing its way through a crate of lemons. Bearing a striking resemblance to the deadly screaming mandrake in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, this little monster is just as revolting to behold and looks like it might be every bit as fatal. Harvested between now and Christmas (when the sugar content is at its highest), the Cambridge Spy first stumbled across a field of these bad boys in a field on the marshes outside Ely a few years ago, when curiosity got the better of him and he pulled a couple up. What a horrible sight greeted his eyes:

 O grisly beasts! O scabby monstrous veg dug from a boggy fen! You too will have your place in the cake world!

Lover of nature and incorrigible glutton that he is, the Spy instantly sent a picture of this fearsome fiend to a botanist chum of his to ascertain a) what is was and b) whether it was edible. Various suggestions were bandied about (manglewort, crab fusticator, cribbly snort), before it was identified as that fenland staple sugarbeet. The Spy reasoned that if it had the words 'sugar' and 'beet' in it, it was damn well edible, and not just in a 'boil it up to make sugar' way. So, to counteract its bulbous, tentacled appearance, the Spy turned it into the kitschest, most 1950s-retro cake in the history of mankind. Raspberries from the Pick-Your-Own Farm in Butt Lane (teehee) just outside Ely. Cath Kidston eat your twee, chinzty heart out. 

The monster still lurks within...

Sugarbeet Cake:

(recipe in cups as it was adapted from www.cooks.com, but convert as appropriate)

3 cups grated sugarbeet (substitute for beetroot if you cant find sugarbeet / are not a pilfering thief)

4 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

2 cups plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/5 tsps bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup chopped nuts (optional, the Spy doesn't like them so opted out)

to decorate: 

icing sugar

glacé cherries, raspberries, hundreds and thousands etc

Grease a 9 x 13 inch loaf tin (or similar)

Pre-heat oven to 180 C / 350 F 

Beat sugar, eggs and oil together

Sieve in dry ingredients

Add vanilla 

Stir in grated sugarbeet

Pour into tin, bake for 35-45 minutes

Cool for 5 minutes, remove from tin

When cool, ice and decorate as you wish (as long as it's kitschy)

When you have greedily polished off the raspberries, you could also try glacé cherries on top. Equally kitsch.