Harvest time is here again, and the store shelves are just bulging with the loveliest of seasonal vegetable. I never manage to walk out of the store without my grocery bag bulging of veggies, and this during this season our refridgerator is packed full of the most wonderful ingredients after another. I could even go so far as to call myself a seasonal veggie shopper: all around the year I love to buy vegetables that are in season and plan my recipes around them, supporting in my own way local producers. I often shop at market places too, but I also find it very important that seasonal products are well represented in normal stores as well, for everyone to have access to them no matter their living place.

My inner veggie shopper got loose this time too: I went to buy some vegetables of the season to my normal corner store, walked about the vegetable department my time (long), and once again ended up returning with a bag full of seasonal produce. My special attention was caught by the beautiful coloured beetroots in the store: they were simply calling me to pick them up, and I instantly knew that I would make out of them something very wonderful and colourful. And here you have the result: these chocolatey harvest cup cakes’ cashew-beetroot icing turned out just as delicious as I was hoping for, the beetroot providing the icing with its rich taste too. These cup cakes are by the way perfectly moist inside, thanks to the zucchini I also hid inside this batch!

Harvest Cup Cakes

approx. 20 pcs

3 medium-sized beetroots (save a quarter of one of them for the icing)
half of a small zucchini
3 eggs
0,5 dl almond meal
1 dl rice flour
1 Tbsp psyllium fibre
1,5 dl dark cacao powder
125 g butter (dairy-free: virgin coconut oil)
1,5 Tsp baking powder
1 dl honey
3 Tbsp coconut sugar
a dash of salt
a dash of cardamom
½ Tsp cinnamon
½ Tsp vanilla powder

Icing:
1,5 dl cashew nuts (soaked, preferrably over night, min. 4 hours)
2 Tbsp virgin coconut oil
a piece of beetroot (one quarter of a beetroot saved earlier)
3 Tbsp congealed coconut cream (or the congealed part in a tin of cold coconut milk)
2 Tbsp honey
a sprinkle of vanilla

Heat the oven to 175 degrees (Celsius). Cook the beetroots whole in boiling water until soft. This will take a while, so while you’re waiting you can mix together the almond meal, flour, psyllium, cacao powder, coconut sugar and the spices, and melt the butter (or coconut oil). Then crack the eggs in a blender and chop in the zucchini. Once the beetroots are cooked, cool them under running cold water, peel them and dice them. Save about a quarter of one beetroot to be used for the icing. Add the rest of the beetroot into the blender together with the eggs and the zucchini, and blend the ingredients smooth. Add then both the butter and the egg-beetroot-zucchini mixture into the dry ingredients. Add last the honey and mix well. Spoon the dough into cup cake moulds and bake for 15 to 18 minutes, until the cocktail pick comes out dry.

While the cup cakes are cooling down, prepare the icing: combine all the ingredients in the blender and blend the mixture as smooth as possible. Check the taste, add sweetness if necessary. Place the icing in the fridge waiting for the cup cakes to cool down. Once the cup cakes are cool, pipe the pink icing on top of the chocolatey cup cakes.

This dough makes for a lot of cup cakes, and I was happy to have made such a big batch. I took some to bring to my nieces and my family, and offered some to co-blogger during our shared hoffice day, while the rest of the cup cakes seemed to be vanishing as if by themselves from the fridge… And a good thing that they did, as there isn’t much room in there after all my seasonal veggie shopping!

tuulia
xx