Amazing Beet Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting 

This cake phenomenal. Probably the best tasting home made cake I have made to date. 

I made this over the weekend to celebrate my 19th birthday, and all of the 8 people who tried the dessert gave similar rave reviews. You cannot taste the beets at all! The vegetables add moistness and make the cake tender without making it overly decadent.

People who say they hated beets loved this cake. Everyone was surprised when they heard what the “secret ingredient” was. I found the original recipe (http://www.food.com/recipe/dont-knock-it-until-you-try-it-beet-cake-63346) online and altered it as I thought needed. I am defiantly going to be making this recipe again.    

The cake batter goes into the oven as a brilliant magenta, but the cake bakes to a nice golden brown. The chopped walnuts really enhance the texture and I would not leave them out (unless someone has an allergy of course. And you could always sub with sun flower seeds or almonds.)

Ingredients are listed in the order they are prepared 

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 and 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour (you can use entire all purpose flour, or use a 1:2 ratio of all purpose to whole wheat if you wish) 
• 2 teaspoons backing powder
• 1 and 1/2 backing soda
• 1 and 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon
• Sprinkle nutmeg
• 3 and 1/2 cup shredded beats (you can also just purée them in food processor)
• 1 cup chopped walnuts.
• 2 teaspoons vanilla   

Method:

1--Heat oven to 350 degrees F and grease and flour 13x9 baking pan. (It is important to dust the greeted pan with flour for easier cake removal. You can use one big pan like I did, or use a bundt pan, or two smaller pans, etc.)

2--In a large bowl, beat eggs, sugar and oil until light colored and fluffy. I highly recommend using an electric mixer, but you could also use a whisk. You will just need a lot of elbow grease.

3--In another bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon, and stir to combine.

4--Add dry ingredients to egg mixture and mix well.

5--Add vanilla, beets and walnuts, stir with a large spatula or spoon until well combined 

If you are ok with it, taste the batter. I found this to be really helpful when getting the cinnamon amount right. 

6--Pour into pan, bake for 45 minutes to an hour, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean, without any brown coloring. Let cool then remove from pan and frost. 

Almond Cream Cheese Frosting

I took half a cream cheese frosting recipe like this one: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/8379/basic-cream-cheese-frosting/ and added about 1/4 cup more milk and 1/4 more powered sugar plus 1/2 teaspoon almond extract and 1/2 more vanilla. The goal was to have the cream cheese flavor but also to have a relatively runny/icing consistency. The cake is very moist and goes best with a thin frosting.

Taste and adjust. 

How I did the Jackson Pollock effect:

Because the thin frosting shows all the cake’s blemishes and imperfections, I drizzled some colorful, runny frosting to make the cake look prettier. 

Method: save about 1/3 cup of the frosting and add about 2-4 Tablespoons of milk, one at a time, until the frosting is very runny but not watery. 

Add blue food coloring (or another primary color) to the frosting and mix. The take a spoon or spatula and drizzle the frosting in large sweeps. 

Add a 2-3 drops another color to the frosting bowl (I used red), mix, and dribble again.

Add more of the second color to the frosting bowl and do a few more drizzles.   

If you want a more control, make straight lines of colored sing and and swirl 

designs in with a toothpick

Serve. This cake was still just as good as leftover 3 days later 

Enjoy!