Valentine Cupcakes with Vanilla Ginger Frosting

These cupcakes are perfect for Valentine's day - they're chocolate-y, slightly spicy, deep red, and actually not that bad for you! Pretty perfect!

After visiting the Chef of the Year contest, I came home with plenty of giveaways. One of them was a paper bag with locally grown veggies, and that included a beetroot and a carrot. I also got a recipe booklet that included a recipe for beetroot-chocolate muffins. I modified that to work with both beet and carrot, reduced the sugar and included half a vanilla bean. I used the remaining vanilla bean alongside some ginger to make a cream cheese frosting - delicious!

I used a 12-cavity muffin tin and this recipe yielded 20 cupcakes. The icing, however, is just enough for 12 - I froze the others unadorned, and will either eat them plain (they're great just like that) or frost them some other time.

Valentine Cupcakes with Vanilla Ginger Frosting
makes 20 cupcakes

1 medium beetroot (about 100 g)
1 medium carrot (about 100 g)
200 g butter
200 g granulated sugar
50 g cocoa powder
1/2 vanilla bean
3 eggs
240 g all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder

Peel and grate the veggies finely. Melt the butter, and stir together with sugar, cocoa and the scrapings from the inside of the vanilla bean. Add the eggs, one at a time, and finally the grated veggies.

Stir in the flour and baking powder.

Scoop into cupcake liners (in a muuffin tin) and bake at 175°C for about 12-14 minutes. Test with a skewer, it should come out mostly clean.

Vanilla Ginger Frosting
enough for 12 cupcakes

55 g butter, at room temperature
55 g cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 vanilla bean
1 tsp ground ginger
100 ml powdered sugar

Beat all ingredients until smooth, and spread onto the completely cool cupcakes.

Recipe in Swedish:
Valentinmuffins