Back to hippie-light.  If you bring me, say, a fresh red velvet treat from Sprinkles or Nothing Bundt Cakes, I’m not going to turn it down.  I might even deep mouth kiss you.  But when it comes to actually baking red velvet cake, I get all like, Wow! That’s a lot of red dye #40.  I mean, chocolate taste-ez good when it’s brown so do I really NEED it to be all red and stuff? Then I start thinking about the armadillo groom’s cake from Steel Magnolias and then I think of road kill, so no.  I don’t make red velvet at home.  Until now.

You know why?  It’s because I grew beets.  And I roasted a few.  And then they got HUGE and I had to pull them all at once and it was 103° outside and maybe I was a little fat and tired and lazy and maybe they sat in the garage in Dude’s mini-wheelbarrow for a couple days and got less than firm.  Which led to beet puree. SO. MUCH. But that’s cool.  We have a chest freezer and beets are yummy any way you slice ’em.  I went to the trusty land of Pinterest and started a search for recipes with beet puree. Smoothies.  Smoothies.  Oh look!  More smoothies.  And then there it was.   A variation of red velvet using beets from a lovely blog called In Sock Monkey Slippers.

Yes please!  I whipped these babies up and used a fraction of my puree in the process. I love baking, I just don’t get around to it all that often.  Let me tell you- these are a keeper recipe. This is my new go-to chocolate cake recipe.  (I just skipped the orange.)

Here is the mediocre photo of the delicious cake.  Trust me.  It’s better than it looks here. I will figure out that damned Hipstamatic.  Later.