Red Velvet Cake (Vegan, GF, Oil-Free)

Is this a cake or is it a salad? Honestly, if you get tasked with bringing a salad to an event and show up with this gorgeous red velvet instead, no one is going to complain. That’s right! The secret ingredient is beets! No one will even guess that you’re secretly dosing them folate and lowering their blood pressure! This cake is gluten free, oil free, refined sugar free, high in soluble fiber, potassium, magnesium, and protein! Go ahead and have a second piece. Have some for breakfast, and trick everyone in your life into eating some hidden veggies! This is how we made it:

Red Velvet Cake

Ingredients:

Cake:

1 1/2 cups cooked, finely diced beets (I poked some holes in 4 beets with a fork and microwaved it for about 4 minutes, flipping it halfway through)

4 flax eggs (¼ cup flax meal + ¾ cup warm water mixed and set aside for 5 minutes)

1 cup plant based milk

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

½ cup coconut sugar

½ cup maple syrup or date paste

1 tsp vanilla

¼ cup raw cacao powder

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

3 cups gluten free oat flour

Cream Cheese Cashew Icing

1 ½ cups raw cashews, soaked in hot water for at least 30 mins

6 tbsp plant based milk

3 tbsp maple syrup or date paste

½ lemon, juiced

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 F.

Lightly spray two 9” cake pans with a little oil or line with parchment paper. If a cake is just too ambitious and you would like to get cake in your mouth sooner, you can also make cupcakes instead! It makes about 2 dozen cupcakes.

Mix your flax eggs and set aside.

Measure your plant milk, add the tbsp of apple cider vinegar, and set aside for about 5 minutes. This will cause the milk to start to sour and create buttermilk! It’s magic and it’s delicious.

Let’s start with the cake. In a high powered blender, add the cooked beets, milk, flax eggs, coconut sugar, maple syrup or date paste, vanilla, cacao, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Blend until it’s even and smooth. Then add the oat flour and blend again.

Divide the batter between the two cake pans or fill your cupcake tins about halfway. Your cake will just about double in size, so don’t worry if it doesn’t look like a ton of batter!

Bake for about 25-30 minutes for a cake, and about 18 minutes for cupcakes. Do the toothpick test to make sure your cake is baked all the way through.

In the meantime, let’s make the icing. Add the cashews, milk, maple syrup, and lemon juice to your freshly washed high powered blender. Blend until smooth. This may take a few cycles. Patience! The icing will set up as it cools, so feel free to transfer it to a small container and put it in the fridge.

Once the cake is out of the oven, let it cool completely. Then pop the two cakes out of their pans and lay the first half of the cake with the flat side facing up. Get a nice, thick layer of icing on top, and then lay the second layer of cake on top. Get icing on top of that cake and eat it up! I’m the absolute worst at cake decorating, so feel free to watch a YouTube video or two and share what you find, because I clearly need help.