baking with vegetables

I use the term "vegetable" loosely here. I am actually referring to beets and pumpkins. Recently, I made a beet cake (for Nacho's birthday) and pumpkin cupcakes (for Halloween). And I am totally sold on incorporating veggies in one's baked goods. They make them so soft and moist. Not to mention, healthier. (Well, kind of. You know, you'd like to think. Haha!)

There's but a fourth of a cup of Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips in this cake, and most of it is pureed beets, but my oh my.


The recipe is here.  I must say, it was the really pretty video that convinced me to give it a try. But, just to let you know, that beet cake totally deserved all that how-to-make prettiness. (Go on and watch it!)


A photo of the pumpkin cupcake frosted (and half-eaten by me) is here. This cupcake was another winner! The recipe called for canned pureed pumpkins, which I didn't have. What I did have were plenty of pumpkins around the house as Halloween decor, so I went ahead and made fresh pumpkin puree out of one of them. (Yumi was a little horrified. She is attached to her baby pumpkins. Lumpy Grumpy in particular -- which isn't a pumpkin, actually, but a gourd. And it is truly lumpy and grumpy. {It makes sense: wouldn't you be grumpy too if you were lumpy?} These children of mine are so funny and strange.) Anyway, the cupcakes turned out so good, let me tell you now that another one of them pumpkins in this house is about to meet its fate.