Bears, Beets, Battlestar Gallactica

Let’s face it. It’s weird when you mix vegetables in with dessert – like something went wrong in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and all of a sudden instead of Turkish Delight, you have Broccoli Delight. Not the kind of delight I like in a sweet treat.

However, vegetables seem to somehow make their way into desserts and cakes all the time: Carrot Cake, Zucchini Bread, Pumpkin Pie, not to mention the southern classic –Red Velvet Cake, which got its coloring and name from beets.

Speaking of beets, a good friend of mine mentioned that she once had a wonderful Beet Chocolate Cake at a local restaurant and that it was her favorite cake ever. She then told me that they took it off their menu and she wished that she could find as good a beet chocolate cake so she could have it for her birthday. So, instead of buying her a gift, I offered to make her some beet chocolate cupcakes for her birthday get together. I had never made these cupcakes before before and I knew that I wanted to go more chocolate than beet. So I ended up with the following recipe (which is an amalgamation of research into different recipes and takes the best out of many to create something pretty darn tasty).


Beet Chocolate Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Rum Glaze

Ingredients

2 cups of fresh beet puree (use about 6 medium beets for this)
3/4 cup margarine
1 cup white sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup of dark cocoa powder (I used E.guittard here)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup skim milk

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare your cupcake tins as you would always – i.e. line with cupcake liners. Boil beets until tender, then drain and cool. Once cool, use a food processor (or whatever you use to blend boiled vegetables) to puree the beets into a fine pulp. Set aside.


Cream the margarine and sugar until well combined. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt and add in alternating amounts with the milk. Add the beet puree and mix for a couple minutes or until very smooth. Using s small spoon, scoop the batter into your prepared cupcake tins. Bake for 15 mins, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the cake. Cool completely before glazing.



For the glaze,

Ingredients
4 oz dark chocolate, broken into small pieces
3 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 tablespoon light corn syrup
1 tablespoon dark rum

Directions

In a double boiler, melt the chocolate with the butter. Stir frequently until smooth and incorporated. Add corn syrup and rum and stir until smooth. Cool till room temperature before use. If the glaze is too runny, add some powdered sugar to it. If it’s too thick, add some more corn syrup.



I added some silver non-pareils to make these little mini bites more festive, but they taste good with or without a silvery sparkle. Enjoy!