I am very, very pleased to have reinstated my Abel & Cole organic boxes but one has to be organised and often I’m not. This often results in a surfeit of fruit or veg. This week I managed to cancel the fruit before the deadline so I ended up with loads of beetroots to add to the loads of beetroots and good intentions already in my fridge.

The remedy for excess veg is always soup of course, but I’ve never made beetroot soup so I appealed to Twitter for help and who responded immediately to my appeal but the great @SteveDoherty1, who instructed me to make not soup but cake and directed me to this website. for a recipe.

I’ve never made a vegetable cake before so I was a little cautious at first but my first step was to cook the beetroot in my steam oven this morning. Mopping up can be a little messy:

No-one was hurt in the making of this cake.

A judicious whizz in the Magimix later and I came up with this mixture that resembled a berry smoothie:

NB Food styling and photography by MsDD. (Those are elongated beetroots, before you ask. not poos)

Then 50 minutes at 180C on the Intensive Bake programme and voici:

Yes, it will crack on top but it’s a very light and delicate cake.

And a quick dusting of icing sugar completes the picture.

What can I say? The cake is rich but light and I’ll use the rest of the cooked beetroot in salmon en croute. Fabulous.