I’m kind of in love with almond this year, it seems. This is my third almond dish of 2012 and I actually made it a while a while ago now but felt that I should spread out the almond-based desserts a bit as obviously not everyone is a fan (you crazy people) and some people will be allergic. I also have several more almond recipes that I really want to make but ground almonds aren’t the cheapest of ingredients so I’m going to hang on to those ideas for a bit. Are there any ingredients you can’t stop using? These macaroons are a little bit different, at least, due to a secret ingredient…
I’m not a big fan of desserts which are really artificially coloured, because sometimes this takes away from the natural flavours in the food and just clearly looks very fake. Sometimes they can look really pretty, but generally I avoid desserts dyed bright green or blue if there is no reason. With these macaroons the secret ingredient adds a pretty pink colour that is easily controllable and contains no crazy ingredients that you can’t pronounce or contains numbers as well as letters. The ingredient? Beetroot.
I admit I was a little bit scared when I first saw this recipe. I like beetroot, but I’m not a massive fan and I didn’t want the lovely almond and delicate rosewater flavours to be overpowered by this crazy hot pink vegetable. The idea is that you whizz up a few chunks of beetroot with the sugar before adding the ground almonds, egg whites and rosewater. Due to my apprehension, I used a very small amount of chopped beetroot and this meant my macaroons had a very gentle blush pink colour as the colour fades slightly whilst baking – you can’t even really tell in the pictures. There was no beetroot flavour (great!) so in the future I’d be braver and add a larger chunk, like the recipe suggests, just to make the pink slightly more noticeable but still pretty and not brash.
The final cookies were so cute and very difficult to stop snacking on. The rosewater flavour was definitely there, perhaps a little bit too strong for some tastes but I quite liked it. The whole almond on top added some necessary crunch and the nuttiness nicely distracted from the very sweet macaroon. The tin disappeared very quickly and I have to admit that was largely down to me! The recipe is here, it’s another Dan Lepard one from the Guardian – like the coconut meringues and cherry chocolate cookies. These recipes always work and it’s taking a lot of resistance not to buy his new book! Enjoy :)
This cake was also important in another way: it saved the baking day. My Mum looked through my whole list of bookmarked bakes – that’s a selection of 340 cakes, pies, ice creams, muffins, cookies, doughnuts, tarts and more – and found not one that she liked. (Update: she would like to add there were many that she liked, just none that she fancied that day.) Eventually, we found this cake that suited us both. Not too rich for her, summery enough for me. I can always rely on a Rachel Allen recipe to unite us! 
Luckily it lived up to expectations – the recipe delivered a really moist, flavoursome cake with plenty of lime zing but a touch of sweetness from the rosewater. My notes on this cake would be to take care with the drizzle. When I made it, I added the minimum 1tbsp of rosewater which seemed like a lot and certainly smelt and tasted strong when I tested it, but once it’s competing with the lime in the cake I felt it got a bit lost. Rosewater is always a flavour to be careful with to prevent bakes tasting soapy, but in this cake I think you can definitely add more than you think. The generous dose of drizzle also means the cake keeps really well for a few days – if you can get it to last that long! You can find the recipe here – enjoy!
