Radicchio Cake (Sweet)

Being a foodie, I own several cookbooks, and amongst these volumes there’s a small collection of recipes, divided by Italian region: “The Italian regional cuisine”. In the volume about Veneto I found this cake.

I love preparing cakes with vegetables as a main ingredient, and I veganized the recipe.
Result: Fabulous! Excellent! Soft!

Ingredients:
100 gr of organic rice flour
100 gr of organic millet flour
50 gr cornstarch
80 gr of sugar cane
200 gr of red radicchio
50 gr of blanched almonds
125 gr of organic soy yogurt
50 ml of organic vegetable oil
80-100 ml of organic soy milk
baking powder
for the finish:
ground sugar cane

Method:
Chop the almonds, they must be very finely ground; set aside.
Thoroughly wash the radicchio; cut it into thin strips, chop it not too finely with a knife (do not use a food processor).
Sift together flours and baking powder, add sugar, almonds and radicchio, mix the ingredients.
Add oil and soy yogurt, and soy milk at the end.
You should get a soft mixture, not too liquid; while baking, the radicchio releases some water, it is best to leave the mixture thick.
Pour the mixture into a greased and floured cake tin, 18 cm diam, sprinkle the surface with ground sugar cane.
If you wish, you may omit this step and sprinkle the surface with icing sugar just before serving, but the brown sugar before baking ensures a delicious crust.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, 180°C. Toothpick test.

The cake freshly baked!

Comments:
Recipe tested, I made it several times, always obtaining an excellent result, we never get tired of it, you cannot resist, it’s delicious!
I was afraid to taste the bitterness of the radicchio too much, but I was wrong: it is sweet but not slicky, you feel the almonds but they don’t cover the flavours, matching well with the other ingredients. And it’s colourful, in short, is a really unique cake.

Chef: Felicia from VeganBlog

1. EleonoraNW3 15 July 2011 at 05:49

   

   Can I just say… this is amazing!! My American colleague prepared a cake made of zucchini, haven’t tasted it though as it wasn’t vegan – but it smelled really good! I mean, I’m not surprised you can use vegetables for cakes… But I would have never imagined you could use radicchio, I mean, is quite bitter. I need to try this!

   
   
2. ken 16 July 2011 at 07:50

   

   this is incredible!! the only cake made of vegetable I know I think it’s pumpkin cake, but you know, punpkin is sort of sweet. never heard about zucchini cake. and your versionis also gluten free

   
   
3. Felicia 19 July 2011 at 19:46

   

   The bitterness of the radicchio is not felt, in fact it is very sweet, I would say very good!
   Eleanor, I do the cake with zucchini, this season is our favorite cake, this is the winter version. The zucchini lend themselves to sweet preparations, as inquiries concerning the radicchio had my doubts, but the first taste was enough to remove them!!

   
   
4. EleonoraNW3 21 July 2011 at 06:57

   

   Hi Felicia!
   I think I’ll definitely give it a try when radicchio’s in season then 🙂