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Cocoa and Chicory Sheet Cake

Slices of a sheet cake made of cocoa chicory covered in flowers.
Photo by Michael Graydon

I like to brew a hot mug of ground roasted chicory root in the evenings. The penetrating, caramel aromas—quite similar to those of my morning cup of coffee—are soothing after a heavy meal (especially when the drink is paired with a buttery cookie or a juicy orange). And it’s even better stirred into a moist chocolate cake, a perennial crowd-pleaser.

This is a wonderfully forgiving recipe to scale up and down—you can halve the batch here to make a dozen cupcakes, or double it to make four 6-inch loaves to give to neighbors. Top with cacao nibs and sprinkles for some crunch, or dot with button-sized edible chrysanthemums.

This recipe was excerpted from ‘More Than Cake' by Natasha Pickowicz. Buy the full book on Amazon. Click through for more chocolate desserts → 

Cooks' Note

Because of their moist, super-hydrated crumb, you can store oil-based cakes in the freezer, where they’ll never dry out. This is an ideal cake for frozen desserts.

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