Turn Chocolate Cake Into A Showstopper With This Vegetable Trick

Vegetables don't make an appearance in a traditional chocolate cake recipe, but some argue that they should. In an interview with Tasting Table, Kristina Lavallee, baker and owner at The Cake Girl, discussed the benefits and growing popularity of adding beets to chocolate cake. "Beets can bring natural moisture and a touch of sweetness to chocolate cake, and the color definitely gives it that rich, deep tone," she explained. Beets are naturally sweet, which is always welcome in a dessert recipe, especially when using a slightly bitter ingredient like chocolate. But beets are so much more than a sweetening agent. "The earthy flavor of beets can actually enhance the cocoa a bit, but it's one of those ingredients you have to be careful with," Chef Lavellee told us. "Too much, and it can make the cake a little dense or change the flavor more than you'd like."

Treat beets as a wet ingredient that you can add to the liquid fats, dairy, and eggs before blending in the dry ingredients. But don't just shred the veggies into the batter. "The key seems to be how you prepare the beets," Lavellee said. "You'd want to roast or steam them first so they're really soft, then blend them until completely smooth, that helps avoid any grainy texture in the batter." We recommend adding a cup of beet puree to your chocolate cake (you can use it to enrich brownies, too).

Blending roasted beets into a smooth puree is easy enough, but toasting and steaming beets takes time and prep. So if you want to spare yourself the effort of peeling beets and the purple fingers that go along with it, take a shortcut with canned options. Chocolate cake is yet another way to use canned beets that'll earn them a spot in your pantry. You can even use beet juice to extend the shelf life of your baked goods. That said, Kristina Lavelle cautioned us against too much moisture. "Anytime you add extra moisture to a recipe, it's important to balance it, so I'd use the purée to replace part of the oil or liquid instead of adding it on top," she said. To that effect, beet puree will also reduce the fat content in your desserts without sacrificing flavor or moisture.

The beets bring an earthy sweetness to complement the bitter notes of chocolate, but you can always bring even more complementary flavors to the mix. Lavelle recommends espresso, orange, or a bit of cinnamon. "Those flavors help round out the earthy notes from the beets and make everything taste more balanced," she explained. The beet hack in a chocolate devil's food cake along with a sprinkle of orange zest will change an otherwise ordinary recipe forever. We've also got a straightforward guide on how to add espresso powder to any chocolate cake recipe.