Last summer at Hawthorne Valley Farm, I ate so many beets. So. Many. Beets.
A few weeks into the summer, we saw beets on the table every day since the garden was just overflowing with them. Steamed beets or grated beets to top our salad greens at lunch, roasted beets to accompany veggie burgers, boiled beets topped with yogurt dill sauce. I love beets, but I’m also all for moderation.
After eating beets every day for over a month, I knew I needed a break.
Until now. The CSA shares have been loaded with yellow and red beets, and I’ve wanted to try baking with them. I tried making a chocolate beet cake a month or so ago, and completely burned the whole batch of beets that was steaming on the stovetop. Oops!
So for Valentine’s Day, I knew I had to try again, this time making a delicious batch of chocolate beet muffins.
They don’t taste too much like beets, but the tops of the muffins (just the part that’s exposed to air) turned a beautiful, bright pink. And they’re full of chocolate, making them a great snack, or an addition to breakfast.
Can’t beat getting extra veggies into any meal of the day, right?
Chocolate Beet Muffins
Adapted from Muffins, Infinite Ways in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.
Makes 12 muffins.
- 3 tablespoons canola oil
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup milk (any type – I used homemade rice milk)
- 1/4 cup honey
- 3 beets, diced and boiled until soft, then blended in blender or food processor until smooth
- 3/4 cup chocolate chips
- Preheat the oven to 400°F and grease a 12-cup muffin tin.
- Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Then add the egg, oil, milk, honey, and beet puree. Mix until dry ingredients are just moistened.
- Stir in the chocolate chips.
- Spoon the batter into the muffin tins, filling them about 2/3 full. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes. The muffins are done when an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
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