This recipe originated from the Green Smoothie Girl, and includes a key ingredient I needed to use up – namely, beets.

Beautifully vibrant red, but a vegetable that is often avoided by the masses – myself included.

However, it is also something that is purported to be exceedingly healthy for you, and something that shows up at farmer’s markets and CSA farms with regularity.

And I am pleased to say that this chocolate beet cake was a raging success.  The kids liked it.  The hubby liked it, and I (even knowing what was inside it) liked it.  Quite a bit too.

The kids even got past the “Yuck!  You put BEETS in this?” factor to nearly lick the plate clean!

So, here is the recipe for a very moist, very delish chocolate cake.

Chocolate Beet Cake

• 3 eggs (organic, free range) or 9 Tbsp. water with 3 Tbsp. chia soaked in it
• 1 1/2 cups unrefined coconut sugar
• 3/4 cup coconut oil
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 3/4 cup pureed, steamed beets (about 3-4 medium size)
• 1/4 cup baking cocoa (non-alkalized) or raw powdered chocolate
• 2 cups finely ground whole-wheat flour (soft white wheat is best)
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt

Puree beets (cut up and steamed about 15 min.) in a VitaMix or BlendTec untill you have 1-3/4 cups. Add eggs, sugar, oil, and vanilla and blend until smooth. Add chocolate and other dry ingredients, and mix until combined. Bake in 9″x13″ greased pan at 350 degrees for 30 min.

Fudge Frosting

• 1 cup unsweetened non-alkalized cocoa or raw powdered chocolate
• 2 cups coconut cream concentrate (soft, room temp or slightly warmed)
• 2 cups coconut sugar, blended in dry blender container until “powdered”
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup warm water (to make it spreadable)

Cream together by hand until smooth. This frosts a 9″x13″ cake and leaves some extra for a treat.

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My changes:

I used gluten-free baking mix instead of the white flour.  It worked quite well, but the crumb was a bit larger than a fine white flour would have been.  Although I can’t imagine it much more moist!

I didn’t have coconut sugar (in fact, I had never heard of it before today!) so I used evaporated cane juice sugar in it’s place. For the frosting I just used powdered sugar.

I used an extra dark cocoa powder, which made it a bit more rich and dark than normal cocoa powder would have.

I added a touch of coconut oil to the coconut cream in the frosting, as my coconut cream had most of it’s oil removed a couple of days ago.

I baked it in two 9-inch round cake pans instead of a 9×13.  Then I made it into a layer cake.

When I bake it again – because it is very much worth baking again – I will most likely add a layer of whipped cream in the middle between the layers.  We added a dollop on top to help cut the richness, but I think a layer in the middle would be very good.