Beet Cake!

Ah, the beet.  I don’t hate them.  I think they are perfectly okay.  But they don’t have much range.  Roasted root vegetables.  That’s seems to be about it.  Then I discovered that you could put beets into cake.  I was intrigued.  Intrigued or disturbed—those go hand in hand with me.  So we got some beets in our CSA, and I thought why not?  Plus, I started saying ‘beet cake’ over and over again, like some sort of bizarre David Letterman joke that only he thinks is funny.  Good thing Sarah wasn’t around to get annoyed with me.

I’ve made a cake from scratch before, though never by myself.  The recipeseemed simple enough, though.

It looks like a real cake!

When I hear ‘beet cake’ I can’t help but think it being fairly healthful.  That’s not weird, right?  Well, there seems to be a lot of sugar in this.  Also, my chocolate was old and I didn’t know how much I had.  There were no context clues to help me out, and I don’t have anything that could weigh the chocolate.  I understand you aren’t supposed to wing it when you bake, but too bad.  Because I wasn’t sure of how much chocolate I had, I augmented the recipe and added a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg just to make sure this didn’t end up tasting like dirt (which is what I thought it would taste like anyway).

The batter looked like red velvet cake batter, but it actually came out looking like a regular cake.  Wonders never cease.  The hardest part of this whole thing?  Probably figuring out how to grease and flour the bundt pan.  Then getting the shortening off my fingers (soap is the answer for those playing at home).

sugar and eggs and chocolate and butter and beets

And, you know, I wasn’t sure about the taste at first.  It’s definitely a bit earthy.  But, really, it tastes like a spice cake.  The chocolate is good and the cinnamon/nutmeg tag team do it up just right.  The first floor neighbors said it was both ‘fantastic’ and ‘excellent.’  And they have absolutely no reason to lie to me.

Beet cake.  There you have it.

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