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Saturday, August 31, 2013

Red Velvet muffins ( with natural beetroot coloring )

I had been eyeing the 'Red velvet cake' for quite sometime. I know the blogsphere is choc a block with 'Red Velvet cake' recipes and mine would only add to the clutter but i kind of treated it as a personal milestone . After buying the food coloring and testing it out, i realized that it needs quite a lot to get that vivid red color. But since i have a toddler at home, i was reluctant to use the synthetic stuff. The chocolate & beetroot cake made me realize that beetroot can be used to color this cake. The quantity of beetroot needs to be much more than the quantity of cocoa powder as the chocolate tends to mask the color. Though the muffins turned out great, the color wasn't exactly red rather a deep pink color. I guess its a trade-off between looks and health.

Read on for the recipe:



















Preparation Time - 35-40 mins

Ingredients- Butter ( 1/4 cup ), sugar ( 1/4 cup ), eggs ( 1 no ), all purpose flour ( 1/2 cups ), baking powder ( 1/2 tsp ), cocoa powder ( 1/2 tsp ), beetroot puree ( 2/3 cup ), vanilla essence ( 10-12 drops ).

Preparation - Powder the sugar in a food processor.

Take the butter ( at room temperature ) in a mixing bowl and add the powdered sugar. Beat it nicely with a whisk till it turns a few shades lighter in colour.

Break the egg in a separate bowl and whisk till it forms soft peaks.

Add the whisked egg and vanilla essence into the mixing bowl and mix them nicely.

Add the beetroot puree, little by little so that it mixes completely with the batter ( Do not add all of it in one go ).

Take the flour and cocoa powder in a seive and add to the above batter slowly, a little at a time (This trick incorporates an extra amount of air into the batter which is very important in making the cake/muffins very spongy). Add the baking powder to the last quantity of the flour being added to the batter. Mix well. (We need to be quick from this point as the baking powder starts working as soon as it comes in contact with moisture)

Take a muffin tray and spray the cups with a non-stick cooking oil/brush with butter. Sprinkle some flour.

Pour the batter into it and shake it gently.

Cooking: Pre-heat an oven to 170 degees celcius. Put the muffin tray into the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Prick the centre of the muffins with a toothpick. If it comes out clean, the muffins are done. Else pop it back into the oven for 5-10 minutes.

Allow to cool down. Decorate with cream cheese frosting or serve as it is.

1 comment:

  1. Such a beautiful cake, wonderful job..Adding beets sounds brilliant.

    ReplyDelete

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