What a Sweet Day

Finally, baking gets a moment in the spotlight.


Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers! Admittedly, the red velvet cake I was requested to make turned out a wee bit differently than expected. The red color is usually produced by food coloring, but why use something that doesn't contribute any flavor and has questionable nutrition? Our ancestors ate for energy and health, we eat for...well, pleasure for the most part.

Our mental development has led to the creation of concentrated foods like sugar, which brought ease of use and variety of flavor. There are also additives with no flavor and with questionable health effects but which are appealing to other senses. It's always interesting to use recipes with variations that appeal to more of our senses, are natural and have interesting flavors.

What is sweet, red and full of vitamins? Beets!

The recipe called for boiling 5 or 6 beets for 40 minutes until tender. Skinned and mashed they become part of the cake batter. Although mine didn't turn out bright red, it certainly had a dark red tinge to it. I cut the cake in half and spread nutella frosting (nutella, cream cheese confectioner's sugar - beaten) on the bottom half. The top has cream cheese, vanilla icing.

As for flavor - it was nothing like red velvet cake as you may know it. The flavor is distinctly beety chocolatey and creamy. The cake itself was incredibly moist although slightly dense.
I will certainly make this delicious cake again!