Fiery Pomegranate Beetroot and Courgette Marble Cake

At The Phoenix Restaurant they always aim to have tantalizing desserts and cakes which are gluten free and although they use spelt flour in their regular baking this of course is unsuitable for coeliacs.  

One of the main problems with replacing wheat with maize, potato or rice flours is that the cakes are perfect warm from the oven and drizzled with maple syrup or a fruit puree but they can dry up quite quickly.
This cake recipe is not only moist, tangy and very pretty it miraculously doubles up as yet another way to use those relentless courgettes which grow overnight in their beautiful garden.

Ingredients:

6 x Eggs
120g Sugar
120g Butter
2 x Lemons
200g Fine Maize
100g Potato Flour
100g Coconut
1 x tsp Baking Powder
3 x Cooked Beetroot
1 x tsp Cayenne Pepper
2 x tbsps pomegranate molasses
1 x courgette (8 inch)
Dessicated Coconut
Chocolate sauce for serving


- Cream the eggs and sugar together until they are light and fluffy
- Add the butter (warmed) and beat well.
- Add the zest of one lemon and the juice of both lemons.
- Mix in  the fine maize, potato flour, coconut and baking powder.
- Divide the mixture into two bowls.
- Liquidize the beetroot and cayenne pepper with the pomegranate molasses and add this to half of the mixture.

- In the second bowl grate in the courgette.

-  Grease a gugelhopf tin and sprinkle with a hint of desiccated coconut.
- Spoon in the mixture in random dollops.
- Bake on a preheated oven at 175 C for 45 minutes, check with a cake skewer which should come out moist but not sticky.

Serve with chocolate sauce and a drizzle of pomegranate molasses.

This cake keeps well in a sealed tin.