For the final day of baking with vegetables -Week 4, in the Fire up your oven series, I have a cupcake with beets / beetroot. I already have an eggless choco-beet cupcake and an eggless red devil beet bundt on the blog,this recipe sounded different and I had to bake them for more than one reason.
For one, I needed to use up the beets that were lying in the fridge for a long,long time and two, I needed a vegetable based cake recipe! So doesn’t this bake fit the bill!!
Apart from the simple chocolate frosting, dusting the cake with icing sugar, I am not too much into frosting/icing/cake decoration. But for this cake, I made a cream cheese frosting. The best part is I made the cream cheese at home! This may not be a great feat for the master bakers, but for me it was like an achievement! Funny right!
I adapted this recipe from Divine Taste and I read that to get the natural beet color in the cakes, the beets have to be cooked with the skin on. I followed this tip and cakes looks gorgeous.Also I halved the original recipe.
After the cake was done, I did the frosting ,added a little bit of colorful sprinkles and a simple cake turned into something so pretty!
I used:
Adapted from Divine Taste
Makes – 9 cupcakes
All purpose flour – 3/4 cup
Beetroot-1 large
Cocoa powder- 2 teaspoons
Milk-1/4 cup
Vinegar-1/2 tablespoon
Baking powder- 3/4 teaspoon
Powdered brown sugar-1/2 cup
Salt- 1/8 teaspoon
Vegetable oil- 1/4 cup
Vanilla essence- 1/2 teaspoon
Wash ,quarter the beets and pressure cook it with the skin on for 3 whistles/ till cooked.Once the pressure releases, drain the water used to cook the beet ,peel the skin and puree the beet.I did not add water.Keep aside.
Line a muffin tray with liners. Sieve together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt.
In a bowl take milk and add the vinegar.Set aside for 5 minutes. The mixture will curdle. Add brown sugar, oil and whisk. Add 1/2 cup of beet puree.
Whisk well to combine. Add the vanilla essence.Put in the sieved flour mixture and combine gently to mix.
Fill the batter into the liner and bake in a pre heated oven at 200 degree C for 15-20 minutes / till done. Please note that the oven timings will vary. Once the cake is done, remove from pan and let it cool on a wire rack.
Serve as such or with a cream cheese frosting…
Note:
- You can use regular sugar instead of brown sugar.
- If you have left over beet puree, try the beet smoothie, or add the puree while kneading for roti/ poori,dokla batter to get pretty dishes that the kids will love.
- This can also be baked in a small pan of your choice.
I also have bookmarked anusruti's recipe.. These look good PJ
Wow, the beets really gave a nice red color to the cupcakes PJ. I always wanted to make these but didn't want to use too much red coloring. Thanks for the recipe, will definitely try it out sometime. Does the beets leave any tell-tale sign in the taste of the cupcakes?
Hi Pavani! The kids did not mention any difference in taste even when they had it without the frosting. Yes, do try it out. The kids will love it:)
Thats a fantabulous red velvet cupcakes.. Looks absolutely incredible..Just cant take my eyes from the last click.
Beets gave a nice color to the cupcakes and look just like red velvet cake. Cupcakes look very pretty with sprinkles on top. That fabric, even I saved it and used it in one of the shoots. That post is coming up on either on Tuesday or Wednesday. We are making good use of all the stuff we got back from Chennai.. 🙂
I've baked these muffins before and they are really super duper. Better than adding artificial colour to the red devil cakes or muffins.
Such lovely colour PJ…when I had made a beets cake, my kids also didn't know..so it's good…on @Usha comment, guess all of us saved everything..I did with the pins and ribbons tool..lol..
Beautiful color PJ! Nice way to use up beets.
using beets is an great idea. Lovely cupcakes
Do we taste the beet flavor in cupcakes? BTW with that frosting cupcakes look beautiful.
Suma, the kids were not able to taste the beets in the cupcakes!
Beautiful red velvet cup cakes! The beets make them healthy and lend a pretty color too. Good one
so picture perfect… delicious cupcakes!!! yummmm
Gorgeous red velvet cake!! And sneaking veggies in dessert, is always my choice!!
Delicious looking cupcakes and the cakes got a very nice deep red color..
Love the idea of using natural food coloring in baking! What a lovely color you have got 🙂
How come I amlosing comments. Love this cake.