Chocolate Orange Beet Cake with Cream Cheese Walnut Icing

Here’s the elegant, more sophisticated sister to the red velvet cake. Red velvet cake is beautiful and is special, but if we eat it with our mouths and not our eyes, it will fall short every time. I’ve heard people say that for years but I refused to believe it. Rebellion Baking convinced me of this sad news a few years ago.

This cake is a Vivian Howard recipe from Deep Run Roots. The cake is more orange than chocolate and has a beautiful color. If you are familiar with Viv, you know she’s a flavor master.

In full disclosure, you’ll want to have about 4.5 hours (includes cleaning) to make this cake. It is involved and you’ll have a kitchen full of dishes but it’s easy (I said easy not quick) to make. The mess and time commitment is well worth it.

Make sure you read the notes at the bottom before you get started.

Chocolate Orange Beet Cake Ingredients:
3 medium red beets (2 c cooked beets)
4 ounces semisweet chocolate
2 cup of vegetable oil, divided
2 oranges (1 Tbl of zest)
1 Tbl vanilla

1 c all-purpose flour
1 c cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
3 eggs
1.5 c of sugar

Chocolate Orange Beet Cake Directions:
Heat oven to 375. Line the bottom of 2 – 9” cake pans with parchment and grease the pans.

Add beets to a 4 quart saucepan and cover them with 1 inch of water. Boil them for 30 minutes. Stick a knife through the center of the largest one, if it glides in without resistance, they’re done. If not, continue to boil. The time will largely depend on the size of the beets. As soon as the beets are warm enough to handle, peel them with a knife, and dice them.

While the beets are cooking, heat ½ cup of the oil and chocolate in a double boil. To reduce the number of dirty dishes, you can put a glass bowl on top of the beet pot to use as your double boiler. Stir the chocolate and oil together.

While the chocolate is melting, zest the orange and add the zest to a blender. Add the remaining ½ c of oil, and vanilla to the vanilla. After the beets are chopped, add 2 c of them to the blender and puree. Add the melted chocolate mixture and blend until smooth.

In a medium bowl, stir the flours, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until they are light and fluffy. Slowly add the chocolate and continue beating. Add the dry ingredients 1/3 at a time and beat on low to mix them. Beat until the batter is fully incorporated. The batter will be thicker than many other cake batters.

Divide the batter evenly between the two pans. Hit the bottom of the cake pan on the counter a couple of times to get rid of air bubbles and put the pans on the middle oven rack. Rotate the pans after 12 minutes. Start checking the pans after 8 minutes. Insert a toothpick in the middle of the cake layer and the toothpick should come out almost clean. Chocolate cake can easily lose its chocolate flavor if cooked too long. The cake sides will detach from the pan after you remove them from the oven while they’re cooling.

Allow the layers to cool 10 minutes then turn the layers out to finish cooling. If the sides aren’t detached, take a plastic knife and slide it around the perimeter.

Orange Syrup Ingredients:
1/3 cup of orange juice (have 2 oranges on hand)
¼ c water
¼ c granulated sugar
2 tsp cocoa powder

Orange Syrup Directions:
Stir all ingredients in a saucepan and bring mixture to a boil. Reduce the liquid by half. If your oranges don’t have much flavor, use additional juice and reduce the liquid by more than half.

Chocolate Walnut Cream Cheese Icing Ingredients:
8 ounces cream cheese
6 Tbl butter
2.5 Tbl sour cream
2 Tbl cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
1.5 c powdered sugar
1.5 cups of chopped walnuts

Chocolate Cream Cheese Walnut Icing Directions:
Beat cream cheese, butter, sour cream, cocoa, and vanilla. If you’re using a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment. Beat until everything is super smooth. It is harder to get lumps out later. If your ingredients are cold, be patient and beat longer. You’ve already spent hours on this a cake, a couple more minutes won’t kill you.

Add the sugar ½ c at a time and beat. The icing will be soft but will hold shape. You can add additional sugar if you want a firmer icing. Reserve the nuts for later.

Assembly:
After the cake layers are cool, spread the orange syrup evenly across the bottom of both layers. Spread a fairly thin layer (but have good coverage) on the bottom layer. Sprinkle a cup of walnuts on top of the icing. You should have a solid layer of nuts. Add the second layer on top of the nuts and spread the remaining icing on all sides. Sprinkle as many nuts on top as you wish.

Notes:
Make ahead. Bake the cake ahead of time. After the layers are cool, wrap them in a couple layers of Saran Wrap followed by aluminum foil. You can freeze them for a couple of months.

If you really want this cake to be as showy as a red velvet cake, you can add red food coloring to the batter and omit the cocoa from the icing. Rebellion Baking has a great tip on how to get your icing white without using Crisco.

Beets: Please use raw beets. It doesn’t dirty anymore dishes to cook them (you need a double boiler anyway). Canned beets won’t give you the same deep color or depth of flavor. They also seem to be wetter so your batter will be looser. There’s nothing wrong with the thinner batter and it will cook fine, just be careful when checking for doneness because the time will need adjusting. If you go the can route, make sure you buy the beets packed in water alone (no acid, no sugar, no salt).

Beets 2: I’m always nervous 3 medium beets won’t lead to 2 cups chopped. If it makes you feel better, get 6 and make another beet dish with the extra amount.

Cake flour: I typically would not buy cake flour for this recipe. If you have it, use it. If not, remove 2 T of AP flour and add 2 T of corn starch.

Original recipe: Viv uses 3, 8” cake pans. I don’t have 3 cake pans which is why I use 2. Her recipe also calls for double the icing amounts that I listed. I think the amount I listed is good coverage for a 2 layer cake. She mixes the walnuts into the icing and she doesn’t ice the sides of the cake.

High elevation: I used these modified directions when I lived at 7,000 feet.
3 T water
2 T extra of each flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
1.5 c minus 3.5 Tbl sugar or round it to 1 ¼ c of sugar
Bake on 400 (reduce the time in the oven)