Velvety Beet Cupcakes with Raspberry Icing

  Cupcakes:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Fry's
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 398mL can beets, rinsed, drained & patted dry
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup safflower oil
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
  Icing:
1/2 250g block light cream cheese, cubed
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/4 cup frozen raspberries

***

Ahh, cupcakes. I always let out a little giggle when I hear that word. Ever since that fateful day of basic training in the army I had in the Summer of 1996... We were learning how to use to radio, how to sign-off, speak correctly, and how to use the phonetic alphabet (A - Alpha, B - Bravo, C - Charlie, D - Delta, etc...). Well one of the guys in our troop began the alphabet with "A - Alpha, B- Butterfly, C - Cupcake...." that was as far as he got until we all started laughing. "Butterfly"? "Cupcake"? Oh goodness, even our instructors had a chuckle after they berated him with numerous colourful, enlightening and confidence-boosting expletives (they would have made my potty-mouthed sous-chef "Nikki" blush), and before they punished us by sending ALL of us to run around the building 10 times. I tell you though, that guy in our group was a piece of work... not only did he lose a machine gun barrel, but he "forgot" that he had a machine gun (the Canadian C-6) in his locker. No shit, the Chef is not making this up. Oh boy. There was no helping this dude. No doubt in my mind some of the other guys were thinking of "fixing" the problem with one of these. That, thankfully, didn't happen, but I don't think anyone ever ate with that dude again after his clusterfuckups...

Back to cupcakes. I found this recipe in the January 2011 edition of Chatelaine. I was only reading it because it was on our kitchen table. Honestly.

But two recipes caught my eye: Velvety Beet Cupcakes with Raspberry Icing and Barley Sushi Salad with Nori. Both being on the same page, too.

So I ripped out the page, purchased the missing ingredients on the weekend (after my Eggs Benedict, in fact), and prepared to bake.

Beets in a cupcake does sound odd, doesn't it? Well, to be honest, you can't tell those little red devils are in your cupcake. I think they just add some moisture to the dessert.

In terms of preparation, everything went smoothly, EXCEPT for the icing. I didn't let the cheese melt enough before blending in the raspberry goodness and the icing sugar. So what happened was that instead of a fluid, uniform texture, my icing had lumps of cream cheese in it.

As always, the evidence:

The cupcake was quite delicious and moist. Although I think I would use less cream cheese next time - the icing is just too rich. And I'd blend it together better, too.

Final grade: 8.3/10. These might work well for Valentine's day - the pink icing and all. Unless you plan on your Valentine's Day to look like Jenn's... damn she looks good. Good like the way porkchops look good when you've had applesauce on the brain. All. Day. Long.