Sugar Swings! Serve Some: Tri-color Halloween Bundt Cake Colored with Spinach, Sweet Potato and Beets

Friday, September 13, 2013

Tri-color Halloween Bundt Cake Colored with Spinach, Sweet Potato and Beets


So it's that time again when Halloween treats show up in September! Woohoo! Although I kinda object to how soon the seasonal stuff shows up in stores, I do like seeing all the creative treats that get posted on my fav blogs and over at Pinterest of course!



One of my fav things are the Halloween cakes that get baked and decorated up.  I especially love the Halloween bundt cakes.  You've seen them right? Lots of swirls of green, orange, black, and purple.

I pinned this awesome one ages ago and have seen it all over the place from Cooking With Sugar


And check out this fun one from Easybaked


Or my latest favorite bundt is this Eye of Newt Halloween Cake from Just Dip in Chocolate


And although I absolutely love the colors and how bright and Halloween-y they are, I wanted to see if I could come up with something with a little less artificial coloring.  (Note: not that I don't use food coloring and gels. I most definitely do, but I often like to experiment to see what is possible with natural food colors).

This cake is a doctored boxed cake and all the color for the cake come from spinach, sweet potato and beets.  Yep spinach, sweet potato, and red beets! And the veggie mix replaces the oil and liquid in the boxed cake directions.  Pretty simple actually.

For Green layer:

2 cups of fresh spinach (I used baby spinach)
1/3 cup of applesauce

Add to food processor and blend well.

For Orange layer:

1 small-medium sized sweet potato
1/3 cup of applesauce

Wrap sweet potato in damp paper towel and microwave for about 4 minutes.  When you can pierce easily with a fork, remove flesh from skin.  Mix with well with the applesauce.

For Chocolate layer:

1 can of whole small red beets with juice.
2 Tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon of chocolate syrup

Add 1/4 cup of beet juice and about 6 small beets to food processor along with cocoa and syrup.  Blend well.

You'll get about 1/3 - 1/2 cup of the mashed up veggie mixes

Divide a yellow boxed cake mix evenly (or as best as you can eyeball it) into 3 bowls.  Add 1 egg to each along with the 1/3 - 1/2 cup of the vegetable slurries.  


Mix well


Add and swirl batters in a bundt pan (spray pan really well with floured baking spray so it releases from pan easily) and bake for about 40 minutes.

unbaked batter - love the colors!
Once baked and cooled, instead of frosting on top, I squirted lines of melted candy melts/wafers in Halloween colors.  Before the candy hardened I added some eyes on top to really Halloween it up.  The eyes are also made with melted candy melts/wafers.  You can buy pre-made edible eyes, but it's really so simple to make them.  Pipe a white circle first, then add a little black, let harden.  Simple eye balls and if they are not perfect, who cares -  lopsided eyes are even better for this. 

I had some crushed up chocolate cookies, so added them around the bottom of the cake too.


And that's it! Cut yourself a big ole' hunk since it's filled with veggies.  


OK OK, I hear ya, this may not be healthy, since it starts with a boxed cake mix, and has candy on top, but hey any veggies I can get into the kids (and my Dad!) works for me.  The colors may not be as bright as those other fun Halloween bundt cakes, but I still like the look.

BTW, you can't taste any veggies in this cake if you were worried about that.  It still tastes like yellow cake but just nice and moist - and way more fun than a plain old yellow bundt cake.







 

Plus aren't vegetables scary to kids? A perfect Halloween spooky cake! 

So is it too early for Halloween for you? Are you ready for pumpkin flavored everything?? I'm not really ready, but it's going to come really fast regardless if I'm ready for it or not, so *trying* to go with the flow!  Have an AWESOME weekend.

Positive thoughts to those at the Seaside Jersey Shore - they just can't catch a break.

63 comments :

  1. Thank You Michelle! It looks delicious and so pretty! Just give it a shout out on my page to a link to yours here on the blog and FB. Thanks for give me recipe a try and for allowing my blog to inspire you, Lizy

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  2. LOVE how you colored them naturally!!! It looks fantastic and it looks super yummy!!

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    1. thanks michelle, I use lots of food coloring/gels in other stuff but like to use natural too, and see how they come out!

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  3. How cool is this!!! I love it. And I love that you colored it with veggies rather than food coloring!

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    1. Thanks Erin! My kids had no clue (neither did my dad who doesn't eat ANY veggies!) :)

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  4. Wow looks fantastic. Such a great way to colour them. Neat!

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  5. The cake looks great! You are so smart and sneaky! A mom's gotta do, what a mom's gotta do :)

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    1. I know! My kids had no clue! And again it doesn't have any taste of veggies! (Not that I would care!)

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  6. Magnífico e imaginativo bizcocho para Halloween, tiene una pinta estupenda y terrorífica.Estoy deseando hacerlo, ya colgaré las fotos cuando lo haga el mes que viene.Enhorabuena por tu blog!!!

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  7. I love this so much I am featuring it tomorrow... Thank you SO MUCH for visiting The 36th Avenue Party!

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  8. EYE Love it; It's Eyesome! (sorry, Michelle:)) I really DO love this cake though...the colors, the eyes; SO fun!

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  16. i do think the look deos look so fantastic i did like it aloot.
    sure im gonna try it and today haha thanks for posting it is so amazing blog you have.
    العاب فلاش

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  55. Its really so great post and I have learnt a lot about these yummy dishes.
    Thanks.

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