BEET-utiful Cupcakes!

YES!  You read that right!  This little beauty was made with BEETS!  Ok here is where this all began, I was reading over at Food With Kid Appeal.  Jenna had posted about chemical food dyes.  She also posted a brownie recipe with frosting colored with beets.   I like beets, my kids like beets so I got to thinking.  Lots of recipes have you swap out the oil for applesauce, so why not take out the oil and add in pureed beets.  I'll be honest, I started with a boxed cake mix (hey, baby steps!)  I used a french vanilla cake mix and followed the instructions on the box, but instead of 1/3 cup of oil, I (or rather D) added 1/3 cup of pureed beets.

D is adding the beets while her cousin H stirs.

Then we started filling mini muffin cups with 1 tablespoon of cake batter.

Lots of quality assurance tests were performed!!

Look at how beautiful the batter is!

Working together to make the frosting!  We only used 1/2 tablespoon of beet puree in the frosting, but the girls thought it was the perfect shade!

M is helping H frost some cupcakes.

D and cousin B are decorating with all natural fruit snacks and a couple cinnamon "red hots" (I know they have food dye in them...again baby steps)

Many quality control tests later.

Our cupcakes were declared winners!

Frosting

1 Cup whole milk

5 TBS flour

1 C unsalted butter, softened

1 C granulated sugar

1tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp raspberry extract

1/2 TBS beet puree

mix milk and flour together in a small saucepan, bring to a boil stirring constantly until very thick.  Remove from heat and cool completely.  I made mine the night before and refrigerated it.  In a large bowl whip the butter and sugar together for at least 15 minutes, this helps disolve the sugar and keeps the frosting from being grainy.  Then add cooled milk/flour mixture and flavorings/colorings. Whip until light and fluffy.

Beet puree

I peeled 3 medium beets chopped them to 1/2" dice, tossed with a little veg oil and roasted until soft.  I put them in my magic bullet with about an ounce of water and pureed until smooth.  It was cooled when I used it.