Borscht Cake

... So named because there are beets in the batter and sour cream in the frosting. Yes, I know there are other things in borscht, and that two similarities do not a clever recipe name make, necessarily, but I figured I'd go for it.

Anyway, if you haven't gathered, I did in fact turn the beets from my garden into chocolate cake! And it was really quite good. I read a couple of recipes for research purposes, and, as is my wont, used them as inspiration but veered off in my own direction.

So, without further ado, the recipe for Borscht Cake:

3 medium sized beets
1 splash vanilla extract
1.25 c sugar
1 scant c vegetable oil (by which I mean, a cup minus a tablespoon or so)
3 eggs
1 c all purpose flour
.75 c whole wheat flour
.25 tsp salt
1.5 tsp baking soda
6 tbsp cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (fahrenheit). If you want bonus points, go ahead and grease a 9 x 13 baking pan. I didn't, and it was fine (although I didn't take the cake out of the pan and decorate it for show).

Boil the beets until fork-tender. Drain and cool, then remove the peels and coarsely chop. Mash in a large bowl. The large bowl is key, both for addition of subsequent ingredients, and because the sides of the bowl will shield you from at least some of the spattering purple beet juice.

Add to the mashed beets the vanilla, sugar, oil, and eggs. Mix until well blended (I used an electric mixer on the highest setting, so as to get some extra air in that sucker and counteract what I feared would be the Whole Wheat Density Effect, but stirring with a spoon would probably work, too.)

In a separate bowl (I know! I never make anything that involves a "separate bowl!") combine the flours, salt, baking soda, and cocoa powder. Add this to the beet mixture gradually, whilst continuing to mix (or stir, as the case may be).

Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, for the frosting, use the mixer (yes, it's probably a requirement here) to whip together the following:

8 oz. neufchatel (reduced fat cream cheese)
.75 c sour cream
.5 c confectioner's sugar

Frost the cake once it's cooled.

It may be my child-of-two-lapsed-Catholics guilt talking here, but I feel compelled to apologize for frosting the cake without removing it from the pan. This was NEVER, EVER done in my house when I was a kid. EVER. Without fail, every single cake for every single birthday/holiday/observence in my house was (1) made from a box, and (2) painstakingly decorated with homemade frosting. We're talking rosette flowers at a minimum, people. One year, the Crafto-Mom made an Easter basket cake, complete with frosting made to look basketwoven, and a handle. Oh yes. So, even though this Borscht Cake wasn't served to anyone else but yours truly, I feel as though I've brought shame upon my family by taking the shortcut here and - *gasp* - frosting the cake without removing it from the pan!

But I digress. It was deeeee-lish.