Sunday, September 16, 2012

Homemade Chocolate Beetroot Cake

This post was originally started way back in July or August and I am just now completing it! I guess that tells you how crazy life has been around here!  The little one is on the move crawling all around getting into everything!  I've been canning a bunch, cooking a lot, spending lots of quality time with friends, going on dates with the hubby, squeezing those sweet baby cheeks, practicing the piano and many other things! It's been fun but busy! So here goes to hoping I'll be blogging more in the near future!

Back in July or August I had a surplus of beets...what do you do with a ton of beets you ask? Well you pickle them, you roast them, you make baby food and then when there is nothing else left to make you research things to make and you find odd recipes one of which was homemade Chocolate Beetroot Cake! Insane I know veggies inside of a chocolate cake? Does the cake actually taste good? Is the texture that of a normal cake? Does it have a rich chocolate flavor like it should? ...Is it even edible??? Well yes...yes...yes...and yes... it is all of those things it taste great, it is the texture of normal cake, it has a rich chocolate flavor and it is most definitely edible! I would go so much as to say that it was very very good! My father-in-law brags about it to all of his friends and relatives and asks if anyone has ever heard of a beet cake...its quite comical! So if you ever have a large quantity of beets or just want to add in some extra nutrition to chocolate cake give this cake a whirl!

I used the recipe below as the base for mine and I made a few adaptations to it!  Next time I might not do the cream cheese icing and do a sprinkling of confectioners sugar instead as the cake was so good by itself. Everyone seemed to like the icing but I'm still thinking just confectioners sugar would be great!


Chocolate Beet Cake

From Straight From the Farm

Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened, divided
1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar or regular brown sugar which is what I think I used
3 eggs at room temperature
2-3 oz. dark chocolate
5 medium beets (2 cups pureed)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Icing 
8 oz. cream cheese softened
2 cups of confectioners sugar or less if desired
2 Tablespoons of beet puree


Directions
Make the beet puree by trimming the beets and simmering them for about 50 minutes, until tender. Drain the liquid and cool the beets (you can run water over them to cool them off.) Slide the skins off, then place them in a food processor or blender and puree until smooth. Let the puree cool slightly before using it in the cake.

Cream 3/4 cup of the butter with the dark brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer, then add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Melt the remaining butter together with the chocolate, either in the microwave or in a double boiler over simmering water. Cool slightly, then add the chocolate mixture, beet puree, and vanilla into the butter/sugar mixture (it may look separated at this point.)

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add the dry ingredients to the bowl with the wet ingredients and mix well. Pour the batter into two greased 9 inch cake pans; bake at 375 degrees F for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean (I started checking around 25 minutes.) Cool the cake in the pan 15 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

Mix cream cheese and sugar until smooth add in beet puree to create that lovely purplish color!