Eggless and Natural Red Velvet Cupcakes

I had been thinking of making the red velvet cake for long time. I saw some egg-less recipes but those used color and I was not keen on using any colors. This recipe posted by Anushruti from Divine Taste is surely a winner and keeper in terms of ingredients as well as taste and texture of the cupcakes. Do try this recipe. The secret ingredient Beetroot gives the bight red color can not be felt at all in the cupcake. I asked S if can he make out what did I use for color, but he could not! So try baking these cupcake and play the guessing game for the secret ingredient.

Adapted from Divine Taste

It is important to boil the beets with their skin to get maximum color from them. 
Ingredients

For the Cake
3/4 cup beet puree (directions follow)
1 1/2 cup plain flour (Used whole wheat pastry flour)
4 tsp cocoa powder
11/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk + 1 tbsp vinegar
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract


Method
Take 2 medium sized beets, wash them and cook in a pressure cooked until tender without peeling them. This ensures that you get the maximum colour out of the beets.
Once the beets are cooked through, allow to cool and peel the skin. Chop into pieces and blend to a puree using approximately 4 tbsp water. Line cupcake or muffin pan with cupcake liners.
In a bowl assemble all the dry ingredients the plain flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt together and sieve once. Pre heat the oven to 175 C/350 F.
In another bowl put in the milk and vinegar and allow it to sit for about five minutes. Put in the granulated sugar and oil and blend with a blender until the sugar dissolves. Stir in the beet puree and the vanilla extract.
Now put in the sieved dry ingredients into the liquid ingredients and beat until well mixed, about 3 to 4 minutes. With the help of an ice cream scoop or a spoon drop the batter into the cupcake liners and bake for about 20 to 25 minutes. The cupcakes baked in 20 minutes in my oven.

Method for the Frosting

Ingredients
1  8 ounce package cream cheese, at room tempertaure
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
2 cups icing (confectioner’s) sugar
1 to 2 tbsp cream or milk
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Method:
Beat all the ingredients together with an electric mixer or stand mixer until smooth and fluffy.
Makes 15 cupcakes or one 9 inch cake. I halved the recipe for frosting as we like cupcake without icing too. I used Wilton 1M tip for icing the cupcakes.