Joy the Baker's Chocolate Beet Cake

First, this cake!  It can’t be BEET! 

That was neither or a typo or a misspelling.  It’s a beet cake.  A cake full of beet, frosted with beet.  And it can’t be…beat.  (Sorry about the punning, it’s genetic.)  I pulled the old fisherman's trick of holding my catch out in front of me for the picture, so I should tell you this does not make a giant mutant cake, as this photo might lead you to believe.  It's a perfectly normal-sized two layer cake. 

Go make this cake –STAT.   It will become my standard chocolate cake.  It’s moist and flavorful and secretly slightly better for you.  Just one more amazing recipe from Joy the Baker.

So, yes, I’ve been away.  I have some ‘splaining to do, I know, and I’m sorry.  It’s been hectic – the wedding planning, a job change, and home renovations, which exploded in an invasive cloud of plaster dust that had us Swiffering the avocados on the kitchen counter along with every other item in the house.  We did 14 loads of laundry that weekend.  It was an oops, an ugh, and a cough that lasted a week. 

I should mention that this happened four days before my mother-in-law came to stay with us for the first time.   Anything that I had planned to do in advanced of her visit was scrapped and the day before she landed I managed to buy only flowers for her room (finally plaster dust free but still somehow lacking), a vacuum cleaner, and a large bottle of gin.   I still can’t figure out what my intentions were with the last two – but the flowers were marvelous.

The trip was marvelous, too – very productive, but still calm and easy.  Maybe it was the gin.  We had a few lovely dinners at home including a Bolognese I will post tomorrow - promise.  We had it with fresh fettuccine but I like it best with dried rigatoni – and always with pecorino romano and a little crushed red pepper.

As long as we don't have another major plaster dust uprising, I should be back to regular programming.  So happy to be back!