My chocolate hazelnut cupcakes are made in one bowl with beets instead of eggs and oil. A dark delicious devil's food cake with a 2 ingredient luscious frosting.
If using ready-cooked beets*, add them to a blender and puree until smooth. If you intend to cook your own beets, see notes.**
Make Cupcakes
In a large mixing bowl, add the sugar and wet ingredients and stir until the sugar feels less crunchy.
1 cup organic cane sugar, 1 cup milk, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, ½ cup beet puree*, 1 teaspoon hazelnut extract
In another bowl, mix up the dry ingredients. Add the wet to dry and mix up the batter until smooth.
1 ¼ cup all purpose flour, ¼ cup hazelnut flour, ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon baking powder, pinch of salt
Pour batter into prepared cupcake pans, filling each well about two-thirds.
Bake cupcakes for 18 minutes, cool in pan for 2 minutes, then remove from pan and cool on rack before frosting.
Make Ganache Frosting
Warm the coconut milk in a pot or in the microwave for 60 seconds.
⅓ cup full fat coconut milk
Stir in chocolate chips, stirring until all are melted. If need be, microwave the mixture another 30 seconds to finish melting process.
1 cup chocolate chips
Frost cupcakes by dipping each cooled cupcake into the frosting, and allow to set at room temperature, about 3 minutes.
Storage
Keep cupcakes at room temperature for up to 48 hours. The cupcakes can be frozen unfrosted in a sealed container for about three months.
Notes
*To use pre-cooked beets. Buy them packaged in the produce section. Love beets is one brand. Be sure to buy unflavored. Do not buy canned beets for this recipe, they have all sorts of ingredients that will ruin the batter. Once you unwrap, rinse them, cut into cubes and blend into a puree. Store any leftovers in the refrigerator for a week and add to recipes, including my Chocolate Beet Smoothie.**To use fresh raw beets, you'll need to cook them. Wash fresh beets, scrubbing off dirt and peeling roughly. Chop the beets into chunks and boil for 25 minutes or until you can pierce them easily with a knife. Rinse the beets, drain, cool and and add the beets to a blender and puree them smooth. Add a teaspoon or two of water if needed to get the blender going.Instead of beets, you can use apple sauce, however you'll lose the fudgy devil's food quality in the cake texture.To make the cupcakes gluten-free, swap the all purpose flour for a gluten-free baking flour.