Firstly – shout out to my Mum for not murdering me for taking her freshly grown beetroot and bastardising it into a cake. Soz bbz.

Albion in Shoreditch makes the most amazing chocolate and beetroot cake, and I’ve been meaning to make it myself for ages, but never have the time and the ingredients at the same time.

Things I learnt whilst making this cake:

• The worst thing about grating beetroot is also grating your own fingers at the same time, but not realising until you wash all the juice (and blood) off your hands later;
• The middle of the cake cooks far slower than the rest, which results in a tense game of oven-chicken to make sure its all cooked, but none of it is burnt;
• I’m awful with icing sugar – whenever I baked at uni, my housemate Charlotte would do the final icing flourish, and her presence is sorely missed when I have to do it myself;
• Dark + milk chocolate is a decent substitute for when your tiny local shop has no plain or cooking chocolate.