I was inspired to try this combination when I came across a few chefs on Instagram playing around with celeriac in sweet recipes or cooked in a sweet-savoury way. Gill Meller’s celeriac fudge ice cream was weird and intriguing to me, and then I came across someone using combining celeriac with frangipane (unfortunately I can’t remember who it was!). I decided to roast some celeriac in the oven (roasting often brings out the sweeter side of things) to see what my senses might suggest to me, and smelling the nuttiness immediately made me consider trying celeriac brownies. If you can use a beetroot in a brownie, why not celeriac? The soft, buttery texture of roasted celeriac purée is so silky how could it not work? The more I thought about it, the more it made sense to try!
The mildly celery-like flavour is so subtle that the nutty notes are really more prominent and they were what I was after here. There’s a savoury/earthy quality I think complements the dark chocolate really well, and the result was still satisfying to my husband who has the biggest sweet tooth out of everyone I know. If it passes the Mark test – it’s a win!
I like a fudgy brownie, but if you’re after a more cake-like texture you could replace the flour with self-raising to get a fluffier result.
I’ve been desperate to decorate something with the primrose flowers from the allotment, so I couldn’t resist using them on these brownies. They don’t contribute much in terms of flavour, so they are entirely optional, but what better way to bring that spring feeling? I also found these gorgeous, ruby-red quince blossoms on a recent walk and snuck in a couple of those too – if you have a flowering quince or permission/access for one they are worth a try as they are really tasty.
Celeriac Brownies Recipe
Ingredients
- 250g celeriac, cubed
- 1 tbsp coconut oil, melted
- 200g dark chocolate
- 200g unsalted butter, melted
- 200g caster sugar
- 3 eggs
- 100g plain flour (use self-raising if you prefer a less dense, fluffier brownie)
- 50g ground almonds
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- Pinch salt
Method
- Heat the oven to 200°C/180°C Fan. Place the celeriac cubes on a tray, drizzle with coconut oil and roast them until tender, around 20-25 minutes. Blitz in a food processor until you have a smooth puree (you might need to loosen things up with a splash of milk).
- Cool the oven to 175°C/150°C Fan. Line a 20cm x 20cm tin with baking paper, making sure you leave some to hang over the side so you can get your brownies out easily after cooking.
- Melt choc and butter gently over bain marie.
- Whisk the eggs and sugar together. Add melted chocolate and butter mixture before folding in the celeriac puree. Mix until smooth.
- Add the flour, ground almonds, cocoa powder and salt and mix together well.
- Transfer the batter to your lined tin and spread it into an even layer. Bake for 20 minutes to begin with and then check every few minutes until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack before slicing into squares.
You can keep your brownies for 3 days at room temperature or freeze them for up to 3 months, just defrost overnight before eating.
I’d love to know what you make of these if you give them a try – as always, let me know in the comments or on Instagram tagging me @plotandlane
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Plot & Lane 
These look great! I wonder if toasted hazelnuts would work well with the celeriac/chocolate flavour too
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I imagine they could – let me know how it goes if you try it!
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Another lovely looking recipe! And I have Japanese quince flowering now in my garden, I didn’t realised the flowers are edible! Do you eat the whole flower, stamens and all, or just the petals?
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Thank you for the lovely comment! You’re so lucky to have a flowering quince – they are beautiful. I mainly used petals for decoration here but you can use the whole flower as far as I know. Perhaps remove any green parts as sometimes they can be tough or bitter xx
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What a delicious idea.To make a cake out of celeriac wouldn’t be the first idea to come to my mind.A little unorthodox, though these are the best ideas most of the times. But there is something in that slightly nut-like taste you mentioned.
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I know what you mean – it did feel like a strange experiment but I’m glad I tried it. It’s since gone down really well with friends too as something a bit different and interesting 😆
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