I’m all about making my foods colorful and fun, but I’m not a fan of using artificial food colorings or food dyes to do so. Luckily, I didn’t need to for this recipe, thanks to a very special ingredient. Once you cut into this cake, you’re in for another big surprise and a whole lot more color. Want to find out what the secret ingredient is? Well then keep on reading!
For as long as I can remember, I’ve never really liked cake. Especially chocolate cake. I remember going to birthday parties or outdoor cookouts and having a slice of cake that looked fantastic, only to realize those cakes were usually dry, bland, and nothing like I thought they would be. Unfortunately, all it took was those few pieces of bad cake to make me lose my appetite for cakes for several years. Now every once and a while, I will eat a slice of cake, but I’m very picky about them – they have to be hand-made, very dense and flavorful, and they can’t have lots of icing on them. And they especially can’t be store-bought cakes with that fake, overly-sweet icing. Yuck!
The other day, I got a rare craving for a nice, dense piece of cake that was filled with flavor, so I decided to whip something up. Now I should just point out that I almost never keep boxed cake mixes on hand anymore, since those are usually filled with artificial ingredients (and who knows what else?), and they don’t taste as great. Instead, I always make my own cake from scratch, even if it does require a little extra time and effort. But when you know exactly what’s going into the foods you make, that little bit of extra time it takes is just a minor little detail.
As I was searching through my fridge for ingredients, I saw that I had a tub of strawberry cream cheese I wanted to use up, so I decided to plan my cake around that: it would be a red velvet cake with a strawberry cream cheese filling, topped with a white chocolate drizzle, as well as a regular chocolate drizzle.
I got started mixing up the batters, and I just couldn’t get over how pretty they looked!
I mean, just look at the color of that red velvet cake batter. And can you believe it got to be that color without using any artificial dyes or colorings? That’s right! I used an all-natural source of red color that, in addition, also provided a hefty dose of important vitamins and minerals… beets! This isn’t the first time I’ve used beets in a cake recipe, and it certainly won’t be the last time, either. Beets are such an easy way to add some color, a little extra sweetness, and some vitamins and minerals, and everyone who tasted this cake said they couldn’t even taste them at all! So much better than adding artificial red food dye, if you ask me!
Once the batters are all whipped up and ready to go, it’s time to start assembling: pour a small amount of the cake batter into the pan (about 1/3 of the batter), top with all of the cheesecake filling, and then top with the remainder of the red velvet cake batter. You can give it a little swirl if you want to, but since the top of the pan will end up being the bottom of the cake when it gets flipped, I wouldn’t spend too much time worrying about it.
After that, stick it in the oven and find something to keep you busy for the next hour to hour and 15 minutes. Because we want the cheesecake layer to cook and be set, this cake will take a little longer to bake through. After about 50 minutes, it will start to get brown and look like it’s going to burn, but don’t worry, it’s not! However, if you want to prevent it from getting too dark, simply stick a piece of foil loosely on top after about 50 minutes and let it continue to bake.
Once done, remove the cake from the oven, but don’t flip it just yet. You want to let the cake cool for about 30-40 minutes in its pan so that it doesn’t all fall apart when you flip it. After that time is up, go ahead and flip: place a plate on the top, flip the pan upside down, and gently give it a few taps until it slides out.
Next, it’s time to let it cool some more. I know, I know, this cake requires a lot of patience and waiting, doesn’t it? But trust me, it will be worth it! I like to wait until the cake is completely cooled before I glaze it, so I normally wait about 60 minutes. If you want to speed up the process, you can stick it in the fridge for a little while to help cool it down faster. Then when it’s completely cooled, it’s time to glaze it!
Originally, I thought I would do a drizzle of white chocolate and a drizzle of regular chocolate, only to have my plans change when I realized I didn’t have any white chocolate chips in my kitchen. Oops! I still wanted to give my cake a pretty glaze, so I decided to just switch it up slightly and do a traditional vanilla glaze in addition to the chocolate drizzle.
I quickly whipped up my vanilla glaze and then drizzled it on top of the cooled cake.
And then it was time for the fun part – the chocolate!
When I got about 3 seconds into drizzling the chocolate glaze, I realized that I made a mistake by doing the vanilla glaze first. The chocolate glaze drizzle so dark that it completely covered up the vanilla glaze!
Even though it didn’t look as pretty on the outside as I was hoping for it to look, the inside made up for that. Just look at those colors once you slice into the cake!
Overall, this cake was the perfect way to satisfy my rare, but very strong, craving for a slice of cake. It was perfectly dense, flavorful, chewy, and not lacking in the flavor department. I wasn’t sure how the strawberry and red velvet combination would turn out, but it ended up turning out fantastic! Good thing I had an extra tub of Melanie’s Medleys strawberry cream cheese on hand to make this recipe 🙂 But I’m sure it would taste just as great with plain cream cheese, as well.
Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Filling
Ingredients
- 3 medium beets cooked and peeled
- ½ cup plain Greek yogurt low-fat or full-fat
- 1 TBSP vanilla extract
- 3 eggs
- 1 TBSP white vinegar
- 2 ½ cups flour
- 3 TBSP cacao powder or unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tsp. baking soda
Cream Cheese Filling
- 1 8-ounce package cream cheese strawberry or plain
- 4 TBSP unsalted butter softened
- 1 egg
- 2 TBSP sugar
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
Vanilla Glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 TBSP unsweetened almond milk
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
Chocolate Drizzle
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1 TBSP coconut oil or butter melted
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F and line a cookie sheet with foil. Wash the beets and place them on the baking sheet. Wrap the foil around the beets and bake for 45-60 minutes, or until cooked through.
- When beets are done cooking, remove from the oven and allow to cool.
- Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F and grease a bundt cake pan with non-stick baking spray.
- Add the cooked and cooled beets to a food processor and pulse until they are finely chopped. Reserve one cup of the beet “pulp” and set the rest aside.
- Add the reserved cup of beets back to the food processor. Process again, until smooth and no lumps remain. Add the Greek yogurt, vanilla, and vinegar. Blend until the mixture is completely puréed.
- Transfer the mixture into a large mixing bowl and add the eggs, sugar, and applesauce. Mix well. Slowly add the dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Set aside for now.
- In another bowl, combine all the ingredients for the cream cheese filling. Use an electric mixer to combine everything, beating until light and fluffy.
- Pour about ⅓ of the cake batter into the greased bundt pan. Pour all of the cream cheese filling on top. Top with remaining cake batter and spread it evenly over the cream cheese layer.
- Use a knife to lightly swirl the cream cheese filling with the cake batter.
- Bake for 55 to 65 minutes, or until the center is set, the top is browned, and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. If the cake is starting to brown too quickly, place a sheet of aluminum foil lightly over the top and continue baking until center is cooked through.
- Remove the cake from the oven and allow it cool in its pan for about 30-45 minutes. After, invert the cake onto a plate and let it cool completely, about 45-60 minutes.
- Once completely cooled, melt the chocolate and coconut oil/butter in 20-second increments, stirring after each one. Microwave until chocolate is completely melted and smooth. Drizzle the chocolate sauce over top of the cooled cake.
- Prepare the vanilla glaze by whisking together all of the ingredients in a small bowl. Add additional powdered sugar if mixture is too runny, or add more milk if mixture is too thick. Drizzle on top of the chocolate glaze.
