We had a big, quasi-Mexican feast at my parents’ house yesterday. My mom made pulled pork with mole for the meat-eaters and also black beans and grilled polenta cakes (which falls under the “quasi” part of quasi-Mexican.) My sister made a spicy Southwestern green bean salad and brought over some fresh farmer’s market corn. My contribution to the meal included a Mexican Shrimp Cocktail, Cucumber Agua Fresca (still trying to use up those CSA cucumbers!) and Chocolate Beet Cake which we attempted tie into our Mexican theme by drizzling with a spicy raspberry-chili sauce but that, as you can see from the photo, ended up looking like a most patriotic, all-American dessert instead.

Now, you may be thinking, “Beets? In a cake? No way!” Yes, it sounds odd at first, but we use zucchini and carrots all the time in breads and cakes. So, why not beets? They are actually a perfect ingredient for a cake. Beets are naturally sweet, and, like zucchini and carrots, they produce a very moist cake. They are also an ideal match for chocolate as both are rich and dark and take well to sweet spices such as cinnamon and ginger. Plus, even though the cake cooks to a normal, chocolaty brown, the bright fuchsia color of the uncooked batter makes it fun to make (a good one for the kids to help out with.) And, the whopping 1.5 cups of pureed beets called for in the recipe makes this cake downright good for you!

Another bonus is that this cake is extremely easy to put together. The hardest part is keeping the kitchen clean while pureeing the beets (beware of those bubbles that form in the blender which can cause beet puree to explode everywhere. I ended up getting beet spatter on my face. It looked like something straight out of C.S.I.!) I made a couple of small changes to the recipe as written. I didn’t have any unsweetened chocolate on hand so I used a very dark chocolate instead and then reduced the sugar to 1 cup. This is probably more of a reduction than I needed to make to compensate for the sweeter chocolate, but I tend to like things on the less sweet side. I also substituted half of the oil with applesauce. I swear I’m not some sort of health nut, but the applesauce trick really does work, and it is an easy way to make your cakes a tiny bit less guilt-inducing. I skipped frosting the cake and, as mentioned, topped it with raspberry sauce and whipped cream instead which was perfect. Robert and I ate leftover cake with fresh berries for breakfast this morning, and it was delicious!