Vegan Red Velvet Cupcakes

Last week at work was my bosses' (plural, husband and wife own the business) wedding anniversary. Apparently, red velvet cake is her favorite thing and they had it on their wedding day. So all of us chipped in and had a red velvet cake made for their anniversary, and, naturally, they shared a little bit with us before taking it home for the evening. It was good, and the baker is a patient at our office who has a small home based bakery business so I know it was made with real high quality ingredients.

Here is the problem with red velvet cake-- massive quantities of red food coloring. Not natural. So I was thinking to myself, I wonder if you can make red velvet cake with something other than food coloring? Did some research and come to find out red velvet cake was traditionally made with beets to get the red coloring. Farmers would get rid of some of their excess beets by using them in this unexpected way. The natural sweetness of beets lends itself to desserts in a way, but dessert is definitely not the first thing you think of for them. Well, at least I don't.

I searched the Internet for recipes using beets and stumbled upon a vegan recipe. Jackpot! Not only could I eliminate the red food coloring, but also the eggs and dairy which don't do well with me... eggs especially lately, I'm putting them on the do not eat list for a while. Anyway, I had a bunch of beets in the fridge and whipped them up. The result was beautiful.

Look at that color!

I attempted to make a frosting to go with it, but didn't have quite enough powdered sugar for the job, so ignore how weird the frosting looks. Funny enough, I found that I actually enjoyed them more without the frosting. I will say, as well, that next time I am going to measure how much beet I put in, because I think I might have done a bit much. They are quite beetlicious on the first bite, but after that the chocolate does start to come through.

After making these (and devouring them) I'm starting to wonder what other fruits/veggies I can make in to vegan cupcakes. These were so good, I'm sure other variations would work!