devil's food cupcakes

Recently, whilst looking for something simple and delicious to make for Halloween, I came across this recipe for Devil’s Food Cake and knew I’d found just the ticket. After all, what’s more sinister than the Devil Himself?  What I didn’t realize was that, traditionally, devil’s food cake was made with beets!  It seemed a bit odd, but after giving it a bit of thought I realized that I bake with both carrots and zucchini on a fairly regular basis and so I decided to give the beets a chance.

Listed below is the original recipe which yields a massive four layer cake.  I halved it.

You’ll Need

• 3 cups buttermilk
• 6 large eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 3 sticks ( 227 g ) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 3 medium beets, peeled and grated
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350° ( 176° ).  Butter four 9-inch cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and eggs.
3. Beat the buttermilk mixture into the dry ingredients until combined. Beat in the sour cream. Add the butter and grated beets and mix until fully incorporated.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for about 35 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center of each cake comes out clean. Transfer the cakes to racks and let cool completely in their pans.

And alas, I wish I could take credit for the creepy vampire bites, but they were inspired by this pin.