Red velvet cupcakes from beets

I love to try new and unusual recipes. This one was published in October issue of Sunset magazine and immediately attracted my attention since this dessert is cooked using vegetables.

Beets are not a diet friendly vegetable since they are full of carbs. I love however the fact that I am not using artificial food coloring and still have some fiber in my dessert.

To make these cupcakes you will have to roast your beets in an oven.

Just wrap 3 medium beets in foil and roast them  for about 1 1/2 hours at 350'F or until tender. Let your beets cool, then peel and cut them into chunks. Puree with food processor to get 1 1/4 cup of puree. Then follow the recipe to make the cupcakes - the full recipe can be printed directly from Sunset website.    

I've got 24 mini cupcakes and 6 regular ones and they are delicious. I decorated them with lemon buttercream frosting and it added a great touch to the flavor.

Absolutely love the recipe.

Chocolate cake vintage recipe

Cooking and just a little bit of vintage today!

I found this fabulous vintage recipe box at an estate sale last Month.It is full of little hand written cards with someones favorite dishes. I am happy I saved them and will give a new life now. It somehow feels like lifting a curtain to pick another card. I try to imagine how this people lived their lives, how they got these recipes. Maybe they exchanged with their friends or got it from their mothers. Maybe it was their favorite dishes to bring to the party. Who knows! But these recipes were written way before I was even considering cooking due to the young age.

I already tried a cole slow recipe and it turned out to be the best one I ever had!

Another day I was in a mood for chocolate and baking. So I pulled out the other card, a chocolate cake recipe.The cake is easy to make and it is very good but I would prefer adding frosting. I found the recipe for butter cream frosting later in between some cards, and will make it another time. I also found that soda smell is a little overpowering to my taste so next time I am going to make some improvements. Like my mother said: "Always add just a little bit of vinegar on top of the baking soda until it sizzles, the smell of the baking soda will dissapear, my dear!" I should have listened to her :)Anyway, I am very happy with this chocolate cake dough recipe. It will make great mini cup cakes, too!