Healthier Chocolate Beetroot Cupcakes

4.62 from 18 votes

Healthier Chocolate Beetroot Cupcakes

Rich, dense and fudgy, these Vegan Chocolate Beetroot Cakes are naturally sweetened and completely nut and gluten-free. By combining grated raw beetroot with a base of buckwheat flour and sunflower seed meal, this recipe delivers a dense, fudgy, allergen-friendly texture without relying on gluten, nuts, eggs, or dairy. This is an easy plant-based dessert you'll come back to again and again. Main ingredients: sunflower seeds, buckwheat flour, cocoa powder, vanilla, avocado, raw sugar.

Prep Time15

Cook Time23

Total Time38

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Chocolate

Diet: Gluten Free, Vegan

Servings: cakes

Calories: 256kcal

Author: Amanda Logan

Equipment

blender or food processor

Ingredients

Beetroot and Chocolate Cakes

Wet Ingredients

180 grams raw beetroot weighed after peeling, grated on the larger hole side of a box grater.
½ cup dairy-free milk (125ml) I like soy milk for baking.
½ cup apple sauce (125ml)
¾ cup raw sugar (130g)
¼ cup olive oil (60ml)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Dry Ingredients

½ cup sunflower seeds (75g) ground in to a meal like almond meal or just use almond meal if you are not nut-free
½ cup buckwheat flour (65g) sifted
½ cup cacao or cocoa powder (45g) sifted
2 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt

Chocolate Avocado Frosting

2 ripe avocados
⅓ cup + 1 tbsp cacao or cocoa around 45 - 50 grams
2-3 tablespoon maple syrup to taste
pinch sea salt

AUS Customary - Metric

Instructions

For the Cakes

Preheat the oven to 170°C (340℉) or 150℃ fan (302℉) and grease or line a 12-pan muffin or cupcake pan. I usually get 10-11 cakes from this recipe. You can make it into a small 6-inch cake, just line and grease the tin. The baking time is around the same.
Peel and grate the beetroot into a large bowl. I peel and weigh my beetroot and then grate it leaving a small nub at the end to protect my fingers (I have a healthy fear of my box grater). Don't worry too much about it - I would say about 175g goes into the cake.
Add the remaining wet ingredients to the beetroot and mix well to combine.
To make the sunflower meal, pop the seeds in a blender or a small food processor. Blitz until you have the texture of almond meal.
In a separate bowl, combine the sunflower seed meal (or almond meal), buckwheat flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.
Add the wet mixture to the dry.
Mix until combined and spoon evenly among the lined cake moulds - fill each around two-thirds of the way up.
Bake in the oven for 21 -24 minutes or until the sides of the cakes are pulling away and the top is domed. You should be able to gently push the top of the cake and have it given you resistance. If it feels too soft on the top, pop the cake in for another minute or two and check again.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before gently removing each cake out of the moulds to cook completely.

For the Avocado Chocolate Frosting

To make the avocado frosting, place the avocados in a food processor and process until smooth. Add the cacao or cocoa, two tablespoons of maple syrup and a pinch of sea salt.
Process until smooth and taste. If the avocado is still coming through add the third tablespoon of maple and a tiny bit more cocoa. Process to combine.
Fill a piping bag with the frosting and pipe on to each cake before serving.

Notes

If you would like the frosting sweeter, add a tablespoon of icing sugar.

I use Australian cups and measures where a cup is 250ml and a tablespoon is 20ml.

Notes

I peel and weigh my beetroot and then grate it leaving a small nub at the end to protect my fingers - I have a healthy fear of my box grater and don't get me started on my mandoline slicer. Don't worry too much about it - just get most of the beetroot in. No cake is worth your finger tips.
I prefer making these cake as cupcakes and line my pans rather than grease them. While greasing is fine if you are confident of the non-sticky-ness of your muffin tray, lining your moulds takes out the guess work. I use washable silicone liners.
Wear gloves! Beetroot stains. Trust me - I've been there.
Oven temperatures vary (up to 20 degrees!) so I have set the temp at around 170 degrees C. These cakes are delicate so we are going a little more gently with the heat. I recommend buying an oven thermometer if you're not sure. They are only around 15 or 20 bucks and they are well worth the investment.

Nutrition