Nonna's Pink & Purple Bundt Cake

I got to see my boys' sense of humor when we were talking about my mom's birthday cake. Dylan said, "I want to make her a pretty pink and purple cake with - " Riley interrupted "with Medusa snakes made of marzipan!" They both collapsed on the floor in a fit of laughter. Why? "Mom, Medusa is a witch." Let's just hope that Nonna has a sense of humor, too. She did.

I was able to talk Dylan into the fact that pink and purple blend to a magenta color - the same color as beets. So, he went with a beet bundt cake with a beet-lemon juice glaze. To make it pretty, he added sugar pearls.

CAKE

1 C all-purpose flour

1 C white whole wheat flour

1 t baking powder

1/2 t baking soda

1 t ground cinnamon

1/2 t ground cardamom

1/2 t ground nutmeg

3 large eggs

1 3/4 C organic raw turbinado sugar

1 C extra-virgin olive oil

2 t pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 C julienned beets (I roasted them, peeled them, and used my julienne peeler on them)

Butter your bundt pan and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk all of the wet ingredients (except for the beets) together. Add in the dry ingredients and stir until just moistened. Fold in the beets and bake for 35-40 minutes. Remove cake to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes. In the meantime, mix up the glaze. It has to be applied when the cake is warm for it to stick.

GLAZE

1/4 cup beet juice

2 T freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 C organic confectioners’ sugar

After 10 minutes of cooling, invert your cake and glaze. At this point, Riley mixed up some marzipan and formed them into one-eyed snakes with forked tongues.