Velvety Chocolate-Beet Cupcakes with Raspberry Icing

Yum Yum Yum! I can't get over how beautiful these cupcakes turned out! I read a Chatelaine magazine a while back with a gorgeous picture of a chocolate cupcake and bright pink frosting on the cover. Ever since I have been wanting to give these cupcakes a try. The twist, there are beets in the cupcakes! I figured they can only make them more moist and delicious, and I was right. You don't taste the beets at all in this recipe, they are just hidden in the cupcake itself.

I served these cupcakes at a get-together with some friends. They delighted in how cute they looked, and how good they tasted. I then proceeded to say "You'll never guess what the secret ingredient is!" It got them a little nervous as they had already started nibbling away. They were all very surprised to learn that there were beets inside. It's safe to say that if you would like to sneak some nutrition into a cupcake, this would be the way to do it. One of my friends who actually was unsure about even trying the cupcakes because she isn't a fan of chocolate cake, proceeded to eat the whole thing! These were a definite success.

I did alter this recipe a little bit, I am not a fan of cream cheese frosting, and the original recipe did call for it. I decided instead to use conventional whipped vanilla frosting, as I did not have time to whip together a buttercream. I didn't read the recipe thoroughly enough either, and I actually used the entire can of beets instead of just half like the original recipe called for. I also found that the proportions for this recipe really only made enough for 11 cupcakes filled 3/4 of the way up the muffin tin, so when making these again, I will pour 2/3 of the way.

Here is my recipe for Velvety Chocolate-Beet Cupcakes with Raspberry Icing
(with help from Chatelaine, January 2011, p.164)

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 398ml can of beets, rinsed, drained and patted dry
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil(original recipe calls for safflower oil, but I didn't have any)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk

Frosting
1/2 can of whipped vanilla frosting (you can probably use regular vanilla as well)
1/4 cup frozen raspberries, defrosted with liquid
24 fresh raspberries, blackberries or blueberries for garnish

Directions
Leave frozen raspberries out to be completely defrosted in their own liquid

Preheat oven to 350F, with a rack in the middle of the oven.

Prepare your 12-cup muffin tin, either line with paper cups or spray with non-stick cooking oil. I recommend using a silicon mold though. I went to 3 different stores looking for one and finally found it. It is very worthwhile, as they come out so perfect and it is so easy to clean. Plus I just used a tiny bit of non-stick cooking spray, but I probably didn't need to.

Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda in a large bowl. Stir in salt.

In a food processor or blender, puree the beets. Make sure you have properly drained and dried them before you do this so there is no excess liquid. The canned beets that I found were generally sliced, so some of the pieces were alluding my food processor's blades. The beets are so soft though that you can just chop this bits down with the spatula you use to scrape down the sides.

In a mixer, beat the sugar and oil until combined, takes about a minute or so. Beat in egg, beets and vanilla.

Gradually beat in one-third of the dry ingedients just until blended, then half of the buttermilk. Alternate between dry ingredients and buttermilk, making sure to end with the dry ingredients.

Pour batter into a measuring cup for easy pouring. Divide the batter among the muffin cups filling each one to about 2/3 full.

Bake cupcakes in the centre of the oven for about 20-25 minutes depending on the oven. I baked mine for 22 minutes, and they weren't ready yet, so added 2 1/2 more minutes and they came out perfect. To be sure, stick a toothpick into the centre of one of them. If it comes out clean, it means it's cupcake time!

Cool in the muffin pan on a rack for at least 15 minutes, mine needed about 20 minutes. Once you can handle them, remove the cupcakes to a cooling rack to cool completely before icing.

To prepare the icing, prepare a medium-size bowl and a fine mesh sieve. Place the raspberries in the sieve and push them through with the back of a spoon. The juices should run into the bowl, as well as some pulp scraped from the bottom of the sieve. Discard the seeds. Add the icing to the bowl and mix until the icing becomes a consistant pink. The more raspberries the redder and thinner your icing becomes.

I frosted my cupcakes right as I was serving them because my icing was a little thin, I am not sure if that was because it was whipped and not regular vanilla icing, or if it was because I had too much raspberry juice. I just used a regular table knife to frost, as I don't have professional baking equipment YET. Here's hoping! I added some fresh berries to the tops of the cupcakes, which just gave them an even better cute factor.

I loved how these turned out, and I hope you have fun making them!

Hungarian Palacintas

One of the biggest influences on my palate is my grandmother, and I am pretty sure my sister won't argue that she is the same. Having a mixed and mashed background which includes the cuisine of Eastern Europe, as well as the Middle East, means that our comfort food varies from hummus to these palacintas, most similar to crepes. Growing up, my grandmother would make these as a sweet treat for desert. The dough itself is not very sweet, however you can fill it with a variety of sweet fillings. We always used jam, and my personal favourite is the berry blends with tons of real fruit chunks inside. As we chowed down on the palacintas this time around, we decided that they would be excellent with savoury fillings as well. Something like herb and garlic ricotta, turkey and swiss cheese, or ham for any ham lovers out there. Here is our grandmother's palacinta (pronounced pal-a-chin-ta) recipe(well as much as she could give, as she barely uses recipes herself).

Ingredients

1 egg

1 1/2 cups water

1 1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoons canola oil

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

Instructions

Crack the egg into a bowl and beat thoroughly. Combine the other wet ingredients (water and canola oil) with the egg.

Mix together flour, baking powder and salt. My grandmother says the fancier cooks sift these together, so it is your choice. I didn't and they turned out great.

Mix the wet and dry ingredients together until combined. The mixture should be rather liquid, much more then a pancake batter. I would say a loose pudding consistency.

Let the batter sit for at least 10 minutes, covered in the refrigerator.

After the batter has been left to sit, preheat a skillet/frying pan (or two to get through the batter faster). I used non-stick frying pans, but still used a little dab of butter for each pancake. I tried using cooking spray, but found that the outside of the palacinta did not brown up at all, and who doesn't love just a little taste of butter? I had the frying pans on high, but you'll have to adjust the temperature to your stove, my stove is not that hot.

Ladle out enough batter to lightly cover the bottom of your frying pan. You will inevitably ladle out too much batter, because it is hard to estimate how much is needed, but these really should be quite thin. I found that you could use about a third of a ladle to effectively coat an average sized pan. It's all a matter of the size of your equipment (that's what she said!). Once the batter is in the pan, quickly twist your wrist around ensuring coverage of the entire pan and a perfect circle. This takes practice, and even the greats, like my grandmother, don't always get it the first few times. Don't be discouraged though, it all looks the same on the way out!

One the batter is all spread in the pan, wait a few moments until the palacinta is loose, and has a golden colour to it. flip it gently and wait a few more seconds until you get a similar grown colour on the other side. All this should be fairly quick and I would guesstimate that it should take about 4-6 minutes from start to finish.

Once you are done each palacinta, let them cool for a few moments on a piece of paper towel, and then stack the cooled palacintas with paper towel between each on a plate, ready to serve.

Serve with any filling you like, and obviously adjust this recipe for the amount that you wish to make. I made about 20 palacintas with this recipe.

Buon appetito!