Eatables - Beet Cake and "Walmart's Whipped Buttercream Icing"

I was talking with a couple of friends (both of whom bake) a few weeks ago and was shocked to learn that they had never heard of a chocolate beet cake. They have truly been missing out, because if you are at all a fan of chocolate cake, then you will love a beet cake. My only future modification and suggestion for other bakers would be to really process your beets before adding them in. I only semi-mashed mine, and I could tell that there were occasional, very small beet bits in the final product. However, beet cakes almost always turn out amazing, and this was no exception. According to my panel of refined taste-testers (aka housemates) this cake was delicious...until I added the icing.

By request from one of my tasters, I tried out a new recipe for the icing that I found online. It was called "Walmart's Whipped Buttercream Icing." The, er, sampling I did while making the icing tasted okay, but at the end of it all, we all agreed that it had a lard sort of flavor and each bite sort of coated the inside of your mouth. This unpleasant flavor was only enhanced by the fact that I put the leftover cake in the fridge. The chilled icing was really not good. I will not be using this recipe again.

Recipes after the jump.

Red Beet Chocolate Cake
This recipe came to me from my mom's recipe box and looks like it was cut from a newspaper.

1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 cup salad oil (I used vegetable oil. I don't know if there's a difference.)
2 squares chocolate, melted, unsweetend
1 1/2 cups mashed beets, or blended (16 oz. can, drained)
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons soda
1 teaspoons vanilla

Cream sugar and eggs. Add salad oil, melted chocolate and beets to sugar mixture. Sift together flour, salt and soda. Add sifted ingredients to the chocolate-sugar mixture, then add vanilla. Bake in two layer cake pans at 350 degrees for  20-25 minutes. Cool and frost.


Walmart's Whipped Buttercream Icing

I halved the recipe found in the Taste of Home forum here.