Red Velvet Cake with a Healthy Twist
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This week a good friend of mine from college, LaVonne, tagged a recipe for several of her friends to see on Facebook, including myself. And as soon as it scrolled across my screen I about fell out of my chair, it was something I simply had to try.
It’s a red velvet cake, with a twist. It’s part boxed mix, part homemade. Take that Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee. And a double ‘take that’ to Jessica Seinfeld for the inclusion of the “secret ingredient”…
Are you ready to hear what it is?…
You sure?
It’s beets! Yup, gloriously healthy, stunning red delicious beets!
I’ve never made beets before, but treated them just as I would with potatoes. Worked like a charm.
After that, they got dumped into the food processor yielding 1 1/2 cups of puree.
Along with the five other ingredients, it is a pretty simple recipe.
~1 box Chocolate Cake Mix
~ 1 stick butter
~ 2 large eggs
~ 1 1/2 cup pureed beets
~ 1 Tbsp Cocoa
~ 1 Tbsp Sugar
I greased and floured a couple pans, ready for the wonderous mix of beet red batter. Oh yeah…
I threw everything into the mixer and got a whippin’!
Look at that?! It’s gorgeous, you can’t deny.
The last step before dumping the batter into the pan, was soaking my Wilton Bake Even strips. These are the best things to hit the baking world since the convection oven. By using these bad boys your cake will bake consistently, avoiding that annoying and ugly dome in the middle of your cake.
Worth. Every. Penny.
After a 35 minute romp in the oven, set at 350, the cake was ready!
But alas, time got away from me yesterday and today I finally got around to frosting this kid.
I opted for a simple frosting, being to lazy to go full bore and decorate this like a “real” decorator should.
And with every dollop of frosting, it started looking like a proper delicious cake.
Here she is. I immediately sliced off a slab running into the room to interrupt Ben’s studying for finals wanting to make sure his opinion was counted. It was a hit. He’s already had seconds.
I hope you will make this bad boy too. No oil, just vegg – how can you lose?
Click here for the Printable Recipe!
Cook up and enjoy.
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Hey…it's Val from SFFS….looks delish on here too! I'm going to have to invest in the Wilton cake strips. I've only heard good things about them for forever! Time to bite the bullet!
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I can't believe you use beets in Red Velvet Cake!?!? That is nuts! Is that what you use in homemade traditional red velvet?
Wow… I've never ever heard of using beets in a red velvet cake before… I'm personally not a beet fan but this has me intrigued! Where'd you find the wilton cake strips?!?!?
Yum! I always use beetroot to colour my Red Velvet Cake, but usually the beetroot powder, not fresh ones. I'm going to try this some time. Yummy. Beetroot is made for chocolate cake.
that's genius! Love it!
thanks so much for visiting my blog! I'm so glad you liked it! Your lumberjack story is quite a good one–unique from most bloggers, that's for sure. 😀 I'm glad we've connected.
Holy Cow! Where was this recipe last year when I had 7 weeks worth of beets with my CSA share?! You can only eat roasted beets with goat cheese so many times before the rest of the family stages a revolt. I am SO trying that cake this year.
Gorgeous! And I heart Wilton Bake Even strips.
Beets! That's like, smashingly-clever really. Especially since then you don't feel as horrible about using so much food coloring, which quite honestly, gets to be a bit creepy in my opinion.
I followed you from the foodie blog roll and I'd love to guide Foodista readers to your site. I hope you could add this beet widget at the end of this post so we could add you in our list of food bloggers who blogged about recipes with beets,Thanks!
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