Fall... beets... cupcakes!

It's fall in Northern California. That means that the days are a bit shorter and cooler, the nights chillier, the leaves yellow and brown and crunchy under foot. It's lovely. It also means it's the season for root vegetables and I love root vegetables. I especially adore beets.

So naturally, I made cupcakes.

Okay, I'll explain. I was inspired by a recipe I read in Sunset magazine which I have recently mysteriously begun receiving. It had a recipe for red velvet cupcakes colored not with food coloring but with roasted beets. I thought that was brilliant! And so I set out to make them.

Being me, I couldn't just follow the recipe exactly. First, I decided to make mini cupcakes instead of full sized ones. Then I used whole wheat pastry flour instead of the cake flour, I used truvia instead of sugar, being diabetic and all. I also changed the buttercream icing to a more lactose-intolerant-friendly vegan cream cheese icing with a dash of grapefruit bitters for extra flavor.

They turned out alright. Next time, I will not bake them as long as they got a bit dry. They are still pretty tasty though and I like that they aren't super sweet. They are a really pretty red color though, which is great for Halloween!

Anyway, here are some pictures and the recipe. Original is from Sunset Magazine, Northern California edition, October 2012.

roasted beet puree

finished batter

Adding icing.

 And here's the recipe:

Red velvet cupcakes with orange buttercream

Makes 12 cupcakes (32 mini cupcakes)

Cupcakes
1 lb. red beets (3 medium), scrubbed

2 cups sifted cake flour

1 tsp. baking powder

¾ tsp. kosher or fine sea salt

1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 cup plus 2 tsp. granulated sugar (or 3/8 cup truvia or other similar brand if doing sugar free)

3 large eggs, beaten to blend

2/3 cup canola oil

¾ tsp. vanilla extract

Orange buttercream

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups powdered sugar (10 tsp. truvia if doing sugar free)

½ tsp. pure orange oil (or zest of 1 orange)

¼ tsp. vanilla extract

• 1.       Make cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350. Wrap each beet in foil, put on a rimmed baking sheet, and roast until tender when pierced, 1 to 1 ½ hours. Let cool. Peel, cut into chunks, and puree in a food processor. Measure 1 ¼ cups puree.
• 2.       Line a 12-cup muffin pan (1/2 cup size) with paper liners. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Set aside.
• 3.       Whisk together beet puree, granulated sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla in a large bowl. With a plastic spatula, stir in flour mixture one-third at a time just until smooth.
• 4.       Spoon batter into muffin cups, filling each almost to the top of the liner. Bake until cupcakes spring back when gently pressed and a toothpick inserted in center of one comes out with a couple of moist crumgs clinging. 25 to 30 minutes (15 – 17 minutes for mini cupcakes). Let cool in pan on a rack for 10 minutes. Transfer to rack to cool completely.
• 5.       Make buttercream: Beat butter with a mixer on high speed until very smooth. Add powdered sugar, orange oil, and vanilla; beat on low speed to blend, then on medium until fluffy and smooth.
• 6.       Spread a thick layer of buttercream on cupcakes, swirling it decoratively. Or pipe frosting from a pastry bag, using a star tip.

Per cupcake: 481 cal. 29 gram of fat, 53 g. carbs, 176 mg sodium, 94 mg chol.

Per mini cupcake of sugar free: not sure of the calories but it’s much less, 10 g. of carbs.

President McKenzie

Ah, yes. President McKenzie. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? 

It's not what you think. Really. It has nothing to do with politics or countries or clubs (or country clubs for that matter). Instead, it has everything to do with my new company and the fact that I have accepted the position that I offered to myself. That position is as President of the company. 

I'm also the CFO, the Secretary, the gofer, the marketing department, the payroll department, and several others that I'm sure I don't even know about yet.

Regardless, I went through a lengthy meeting with my lawyer doing the official things a board, a president, a CFO, and the secretary of a company do.  And after I signed my employment agreement with McKenzie Solutions, I signed a lot of documents as Kate McKenzie, President.

I thought that was pretty neat.  

And now I'm terrified I'm going to do something to get in trouble! Yikes!