Since beets are in season now, this Beet and Ginger Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting seems like the perfect Fall cake to make.

It’s beautiful weather here today in North Texas – a coolness that lets us know Fall is around the corner. Cooler weather really gets me in the mood to cook and bake.

If you know me, you know I don’t like beets. Beets and banana bread, but banana bread’s a story for another post. I recently made Chocolate-Beet Cupcakes, though, and found out if you disguise the beets well enough that they can be a good thing!

This Beet and Ginger Cake is adapted from the famous baker and cook, David Lebovitz, and looks so interesting that I just had to make it.

There’s a lot of good stuff in this cake – candied ginger, beets, orange zest, sour cream, and walnuts. It sounds like Fall, doesn’t it?

The flavors blend beautifully and make an earthy, tender, great-textured cake that’s frosted with a creamy cream cheese frosting.

I halved Mr. Lebovitz’s recipe and added raisins because I thought it needed them, and it made three nice little mini-loaves.

I love this cake! The beets really give it a unique flavor (and not beet-y) and you get a little bit of candied ginger and walnuts in every bite. Both of David Lebovitz’s recipes I’ve tried (this one and Chocolate Yeast Bread) have been just great.

This cake is really fairly easy to stir together. Peeling and grating the beets is faster and easier than you’d think. Just be sure and wear plastic gloves when you’re handling the beets or you’ll have semi-permanent red fingers.

If you’re trying to get the wee ones to try a new vegetable, try this delicious cake!

Beet and Ginger Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Yield: 3 - 4

Along with the earthy flavor of beets, you get a bit candied ginger and walnuts in every bite.

Ingredients

1/4 C (50 g) finely chopped candied ginger
1/2 C plus 1/3 C (100 g) all-purpose flour
3/8 C (75 g) granulated sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
4.5 oz (130 g) grated fresh, raw peeled beets
grated zest of one medium orange
1/3 C (37.5 g) toasted, chopped walnuts
2 1/2 tbsp raisins
1 large egg, room temperature
1/8 C (30 g) sour cream
1/4 C canola oil
Cream Cheese Frosting:
3 oz. (85 g) cream cheese at room temperature
1/3 C powdered sugar, sifted
1-2 tbsp heavy cream (or milk)
1/4 tsp vanilla

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°. Spray and flour three (or four, depending on size of yours) mini-loaf pans. Put the ginger in a small bowl and cover with about 1/2 cup of boiling water. Set aside for about 15 minutes, then pour out the water and gently squeeze out the water. Pat dry.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the grated beets, orange zest, walnuts, candied ginger, and raisins to the bowl, but don't stir them in yet.
In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, sour cream and oil together, then pour the liquids over the dry ingredients. Stir the ingredients together, just until the ingredients are thoroughly combined.
Spoon the batter evenly into the mini-loaf pans until about 1/4" from the rim. If you have more batter, use a couple more mini-loaf pans. Use the back of a spoon to even the tops.
Bake the loaves for 25-35 minutes, checking at 25 minutes, until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Place the pans on a rack and let cool for about 15 minutes. Run a butter knife around the edges and turn out onto a rack to cool completely.
For the cream cheese frosting: Beat the cream cheese in a medium bowl until smooth. Beat in the powdered sugar until it's completely combined, then add one tablespoon of the heavy cream and the vanilla. Beat for about 1 minute until thickened and creamy. Add additional cream/milk if needed.

Notes

Tips and Stuff:

Really...use gloves when grating the beets.

My mini-loaf pans were a little larger than standard, so you may need to use four mini-loaf pans.

Make sure the loaves are completely cooled before frosting or the frosting will slide right off!

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 4 Serving Size: 1 mini-loaf
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 563Total Fat: 28gSaturated Fat: 9gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 18gCholesterol: 84mgSodium: 422mgCarbohydrates: 71gFiber: 2gSugar: 56gProtein: 9g

Nutrition Values are Approximate

I’ve never been a fan of beets, but when these Chocolate-Beet Cupcakes came up as one of the cake choices for The Cake Slice Bakers this month, I thought – why not? They’ll be sweetened, cooked, processed and blended with chocolate. How bad could that be?

Plus, I can eat cupcakes and tell myself they’re healthy.

Beets are a very good source of manganese, potassium and copper. They’re are also a good source of dietary fiber, magnesium, phosphorus, vitamin C, iron and vitamin B6. Wow, what a miracle vegetable! Doesn’t change the fact that I always thought they taste like dirt and, when cooked, have a strange texture.

These Chocolate-Beet Cupcakes may have changed my mind. The beets blend in nicely with the chocolate and other cupcake ingredients (including whole wheat flour) without losing the essence of the beet flavor. What a good way to get your vegetables in!

The cupcakes are soft, but have a little texture from the beets and whole wheat flour and although the ATK cream cheese frosting recipe goes well with it, I think I’d prefer a thicker, sweeter vanilla buttercream frosting on top.

Don’t get me wrong – their cream cheese frosting is delectable and I’d slather it on a carrot cake all day long. Bret grabbed a spoon so he could clean out the frosting bowl for me. He’s such a big help.

America’s Test Kitchen’s (#atkcake) take on the Chocolate-Beet Cupcakes in their introduction to the recipe was that they are “something similar to a red velvet cupcake minus the dye and plus intense chocolate flavor and a delicate earthiness.”

Be sure and wear your latex gloves when cutting and processing the beets. That juice gets everywhere. And it’s very, very red!

Oh, and if you don’t want to mess with trimming, peeling, quartering, processing, and microwaving fresh beets, just used canned. I, unfortunately, thought of that too late. Duh!