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Beet – Desserts to sweeten the meal

The beet (Beta vulgaris) is a plant in the Chenopodiaceae family which is now included in Amaranthaceae family. It is best known in its numerous cultivated varieties, the most well known of which is the purple root vegetable known as the beetroot or garden beet. However, other cultivated varieties include the leaf vegetables chard and spinach beet, as well as the root vegetables sugar beet, which is important in the production of table sugar, and mangelwurzel, which is a fodder crop. Three subspecies are typically recognised. All cultivated varieties fall into the subspecies Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris, while Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima, commonly known as the sea beet, is the wild ancestor of these, and is found throughout the Mediterranean, the Atlantic coast of Europe, the Near East, and India. A second wild subspecies, Beta vulgaris subsp. adanensis, occurs from Greece to Syria.

When it comes to dessert, it’s easy to offer a warm chocolate cake or an apple pie, items that are generally popular with those customers who are already inclined to order something sweet at the end of the meal.

Yet many consumers remain hesitant to part with their cash without good reason, and only 10.4 percent of meals or snacks ordered at restaurants include a dessert, according to consumer research firm The NPD Group. However, some chefs are finding that unusual desserts can give customers a reason to splurge.

“If you have a classic dessert, and then you add a twist, people are more willing to try it nowadays,” said Jai Kendall, pastry chef of the 12-unit Rosa Mexicano chain based in New York.

The concept’s most popular chocolate dessert is the $7.50 roasted-beet and chocolate cake.

“I’ve always been a big fan of beet, and I was thinking about how I could incorporate beet into dessert,” Kendall said. “So I roasted beet and added them to the cake, and it really made the moistest chocolate cake that I’ve ever tasted.

“And in every slice there’s a serving of vegetables, which is even better,” she said.

Kendall roasts the beet and boils them until the skin falls off. Afterward, she peels and purées them.

She creams butter with a combination of brown sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and chocolate, and then adds the beet purée, flour, cocoa powder and baking powder.

“Before you put it in the oven it’s bright red, and when you take it out of the oven it’s this dark, rich, chocolate brown color,” she said.

But then you have to sell it. Kendall describes the dish to the servers as being extremely moist and reminds them to tell people that it doesn’t really taste like beet.

Kevin Hickey, chef at Allium at the Four Seasons in Chicago, has scored big with his $5 miso-butterscotch milkshake.

Hickey makes the miso butterscotch by cooking two cups of dark brown sugar with a cup of butter until it’s caramel colored. Next, he adds 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream and cooks it for another 10 minutes. Then, he ?removes the mixture from the heat, adds vanilla and one-quarter cup of miso paste and lets it cool.

He blends one-third to one-half cup of the mixture with ?1 1/2 cups of vanilla ice cream and tops it with whipped cream.

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