Unbeatable Beet Cake

I've been pretty big into making desserts with vegetables as the late summer harvest goes into overdrive -- making a beet cake to use up those prolific, purple  roots appearing in my CSA order seemed a no-brainer. A friend of mine posted a recipe on her blog earlier this year and using that and my own cakey preferences as a jumping-off point for internet recipe-sleuthing, I devised my own variation on the beet cake theme:

Ingredients

  • 1 cup vegetable shortening
  • 1 1/2 cups turbinado sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 cups beets (blanched, peeled and finely chopped)
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 6 tbsp cocoa powder
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp ground cardamom

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease 10-cup round cake pan. Set aside.
  2. In a large bowl, cream together shortening and sugar. Beat in eggs, then add chopped beets and vanilla. Mix well.
  3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and cardamom.
  4. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, blending at low speed just until moist. Pour into cake pan.
  5. Bake for 50 minutes, or until edges pull away from the pan and inserted toothpick is removed clean.
RecipesMelissa DimockBaking, beet cake, cake, CSA, Rae, Recipes, vegetables1 Comment