I am enjoying baking from the Cake Slice Bakers' current book The Perfect Cake by America's Test Kitchen. The recipes are well thought out and the results so far have been great.
This month has been full of all sorts of things, but one is the seemingly endless work on the garden as well as setting up our outdoor living room on the front porch. We have a white rocker with a comfy cushion, a wicker sofa and matching chair, both of which have comfortable seats that wipe down, plus lots of cushions for the back. There is a low wooden bench which can be used as a coffee table or as a bench to sit on, plus a mosaic topped table to the right of the sofa (I made the mosaic top and it is funky but fun), plus a tea cart on the other side of the sofa which can be used for serving things or just as a side table. Tying this all together is an aqua outdoor carpet with a trellis pattern. We have been spending very pleasant time here, drinking water after attacking thistle plants with shovel and machete for instance. Pi loves to hang with us there, too. At the far south part of the porch we have a round table with an umbrella where we eat sometimes. Hope to entertain some this summer on the porch. The photo below is of the garden just below the eating area and the steps leading up to the porch and front door.
When I looked at our choices for May the one that called to me most was the Chocolate-Beet Cupcakes. I love chocolate and have had chocolate-beet cake and found it delicious. What put me off a bit was that the recipe calls for using fresh red beets. I've baked with them before and they are really, really messy and stain things. When I have busy days it is hard to imagine adding to my workload by having to do extra cleanup due to fresh beets. I had visions of the shredded beets erupting in the microwave and having to clean out the scattered beet threads, then wash out the whole inside of the microwave. No thank you. Soooo I ended up using small whole canned beets (which can still get messy, but not nearly as much as fresh beets). I shredded them and skipped the cooking part of the recipe. Worked like a charm and very little mess.
I also made a half recipe because there are only two of us. Sweetie has tried one to make sure it isn't poison, but the other five are above. Besides halving the recipe, I followed the recipe with the exception of using soy milk instead of regular milk.
I would have changed one direction if I were writing the recipe. As written you place the shreeded cooked beets in the bowl of the food processor and then melt chocolate in the microwave. Once the chocolate is melted you whisk in cocoa powder and vegetable oil. I would change the steps. Once the chocolate is melted, I would add that to the beets in the bowl but not process it, then use the same bowl the chocolate was melted in to mix together the oil and cocoa, then add that to the beets in the processor bowl. Once it all gets processed I think the result would be the same and mixing just the cocoa and oil would be far easier than mixing three different textures...melted chocolate, dry cocoa, and liquid oil.
I also skipped the frosting because even halving the recipe I would have a cup of leftover frosting...what on earth would I do with that?
These were delicious cupcakes all on their own and a dusting of powdered sugar made them even prettier. I tried to dust the sugar through a paper doily but it didn't work too well. The cupcake itself was not too sweet and was a nice deep chocolate color and had true chocolate flavor...no taste of beet that I could identify. It was also very moist...yum!
I don't post the recipes from this book. Do yourself a favor and purchase a copy of the book. It has classic and original cakes and is a keeper.
Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking through. This year it is The Perfect Cake from America's Test Kitchen #atkcake. We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes!
Follow our Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the thumbnail pictures below to take you to each of our cakes, or visit our blog where the links are updated each month. If you are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details.
The choices this month were Cream Cheese Coffee Cake, Chocolate-Beet Cupcakes, Rainbow Cake, and Swiss Hazelnut Cake. get the InLinkz code
I wish I'd thought of canned beets - the fresh ones did make a mess! And you were correct on the frosting - it made a ton and I had twice as much as needed. Yours look great!
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