pink frosting

As much as I love Valentine’s Day, I haven’t really done anything festive for it since I was a kid and my aunt threw parties dripping in pink, white, and red décor, chocolate candy, and homemade “lovebugs.”

I don’t mind though, I’m still very much in a hermit-y time of my life — I’m happy on my own, and don’t feel like sharing my time with many other people.

But there is one thing that I do enjoy doing for this fleeting February 14th holiday.

And that’s make a pink cake.

My family hasn’t used traditional food dye for many a year, for reasons like the fact that the FDA just banned Red No. 3…even though it was fully approved by the FDA in 1969.

Get this: it was originally banned from cosmetics in 1990 when it was linked to thyroid tumors in rats, but it continued to be used in food products, and is still in food products today like candy, cakes, cookies, frostings, and oral drugs.

Supposedly it’s now supposed to be phased out of food products/drugs by 2027/2028.

Do I trust the government? Absolutely not. And that’s why we went without artificially dyed food for over a decade (I can assure you that it’s really not the end of the world to eat natural-colored food).

But everything changed when we realized that you can use beet juice to dye certain things, and you have to wonder why we didn’t realize this sooner.

We first used it in 2021, and I’m pretty sure that we’ve been making a yearly pink Valentine’s cake ever since.

We just save the juice/water left over in our pressure cooker once we’re done cooking beets, and add a bit of it to our frosting while we’re blending it. It works remarkably well, and creates a beautiful pink! And no, you don’t taste any hint of the root vegetable in the final product.

Although I went with more of an elegant chocolate-dipped design on Valentine’s Day 2023‘s pink cake, this year I went for a simple and Pinterest-worthy look.

Mom made a vanilla chocolate chip cake, and I finished it off by adding the frosting and strawberries (with a layer of both in the middle!) 🍓

I think it turned out great, and I ended up making a cute lil video of the process before the holiday was over (which you can watch below, or on my YouTube channel).

If you’re ever in the mood to try a healthy, vegan, guilt-free cake, here’s Mom’s recipe for your enjoyment!

cake ingredients

2 cups rolled oats (ground into flour)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
10-12 Medjool dates (pitted and soaked)
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup chia egg* or arrowroot**
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
chocolate chips (exact measurement is left up to you!)

*to make chia egg-replacer, add 2 tablespoons ground chia to 1 cup water and stir until it’s thick and gelatinous

**to make arrowroot egg-replacer, add 2 tablespoons arrowroot to 3 tablespoon water, stir thoroughly immediately before adding to the batter

instructions

Pre-heat oven to 350°

Add the oat flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar to a mixing bowl; stir thoroughly.

Add dates, water, egg-replacer, applesauce, and vanilla extract to the food processor; process until smooth.

Add the processed ingredients into the mixing bowl with the dry ingredients; mix well. Pour batter into 2 greased cake pans (9″ round), and bake for 20-25 minutes (you can poke the center of the cake with a toothpick to test if the inside is thoroughly baked).

frosting ingredients*

1 cup raw cashews (soaked, drained, and rinsed)
2 tablespoon maple syrup
2 tablespoons coconut milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon beet juice (if you don’t add beet juice, replace it with either water or coconut milk)

*if you enjoy a thicc layer of frosting on your cake, you’ll want to double the recipe!