The original recipe I tweaked was from the October 2012 issue of Sunset magazine (pg89). I wanted to use wheat, and not as much(or refined) sugar or oil (since I was topping it with a sugary buttercream icing) as the original recipe hence the use of a sweet potato, honey and yogurt. I also thought that orange would compliment this well and help to blend the stronger flavor if the beets. I dare say it was a success. Kind of tastes like a orange spice cake with cool indiscernible tasty good accents.
The icing kinda came together since I just happened to buy rosemary and mint at the farmers market and it sounded good. Haha. I love beets and sweet potatoes roasted with rosemary, so the idea of sweetening it and mixing it with butter just made sense ;)
The fruit, veggies, and herbs came from the farmers market, everything else, except cinnamon, was at the co-op :)
Cupcakes:
4 small beets (abt 7 1/2 ounces) roasted, peeled, and puréed. Use all red if you want true bright red cake (fyi, might create a stronger beet flavor), I mixed 3 yellows and 1 red for a red batter (Instagram helped them be more dramatic with the end batter, because after adding the yogurt, they tinged more pink). Cooked however, they were pinkish orange.
1 medium sweet potato roasted, peeled, and puréed
2cups whole wheat pastry flour
2tsp baking powder
1tsp kosher salt
1/2tsp ground cinnamon (only non organic thing in the mix, I haven't re stocked all the spices with the O version yet, emphasis on the word yet!).
3 whole eggs, slightly beaten
1/3 cup raw honey (wild flower was my flavor ;)
1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/3 cup plain Greek yogurt
Juice and zest of 1 medium navel orange (about 2tbs juice, 1tsp zest)
Preheat oven to 350.
Sift flour, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon together and set aside.
Mix all wet ingredients together, this included the puréed goodness and zest.
Fold in (fancy term for mix gently) dry ingredients in 3 stages, folding so the wheat doesn't get feisty and start to dense up on ya, until all the ingredients are well incorporated.
In paper lined or greased muffin tins scoop batter until cups are 2/3 full.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick come out clean and cake is springy. Mine cooked for 23minutes, but start gauging them at 20 just in case out ovens are different.
Cool COMPLETELY on a wire rack after taking them out of pan (the residual heat in the pan combined with cupcake heat can keep cooking them and dry them out).
They tasted pretty amazing with a little butter and honey, but were oh so much better with the icing. See recipe two lines down ;)
Icing:
1/2 cup cooling salted butter (if there is such a thing as cooling. Lol. If its too warm the icing won't get stuff enough and you'll end up putting in more powdered sugar than necessary to get it to thicken. Whereas if its too cold, you won't be able to whisk it. Go for "out of the fridge for about 10min" and help break it up with a butter knife before whisking kind of cool)
2 cups of confectioners sugar aka powdered sugar.
1tsp finely chopped fresh rosemary (if trying it with dried, automatically cut it down to 1/2tsp and possibly rehydrate it a little so you won't have crunchy bits in the icing ;)
1tbs of finely chopped fresh mint (go with the same rule if using dry and cut it in half)
2tsp-1tbs milk (you could rehydrate the rosemary in this before adding them)
Whisk (I use a handheld electric mixer with a whisk attachment on medium high) the butter and sugar together until it starts to look like really fine crumbles (it'll make sense once ya start). Then add milk, A LITTLE AT A TIME (no joke, it can turn runny quick) until the frosting pulls together and stats to get fluffy (again, it'll make sense when you see it). Once at this stage, add the herbs and taste :)
I used and small offset spatula, but a butter knife would work too, and spread each cupcake with about 2tsp of icing. This is totally enough icing for these cupcakes, so spread it thinner if you don't have enough by the time you get to 18.
I hope you try them, or find the fun in creating your own healthier version of those "guilty" pleasures.
This creation.., I had NO guilt eating *grin*
If I left anything out or ya need more explaining, please comment below.
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