Red Dye Number 40, You are Dead to Me!

 Red Dye Number 40 has always been offensive to me. I don't know if it is the way it dyes your teeth or the way it can make a peaceful, hard working classroom of children go from 0-60 in the time it takes to eat a grocery store cupcake. Whatever it is, I finally found a solution...beets! No one can argue about the beauty of their natural color and their lacking  "red" flavor. We all know what "red" tastes like.

To make these fantastic Red Velvet Cheesecake Bites, I roasted and pureed two whole beats. I simply added them into the batter and crossed my fingers. After taking this treat to a "Red" Party (not Valentine's Day party, to be clear :-) I realized that I never have to use food coloring again. If you aren't yet ready to dump beets into a chocolatey batter, use raspberries instead, but they are more pink than red.

Recipe for Red Velvet Cheesecake Bites
*Gluten & Dairy Free, of course*
**Food Coloring Free!**
***2 Weight Watcher PointsPlus Each!***

2 Beets, roasted and pureed
3 TBS Butter or Butter Substitute
1 1/2 oz semi-sweet chocolate
3/4 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cups Pamela's Gluten Free Baking Mix
1 tsp salt
8 oz Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8x8 square baking pan. Line with parchment paper.

Wash the beets, then cut the roots and stems off. I peeled them and sliced them up into quarters for faster roasting, drizzled with olive oil (1 tsp), wrapped them in foil and roasted them at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes. Whole beets will take closer to an hour. While they were still hot, I tossed them in the food processor until they were nice and smooth. (At this point the color will be so rich you will be plotting your revenge on all of the food coloring you ever used and ate).

Melt the butter and chocolate together and set aside to cool for a few minutes. In the mean time, beat one egg and 1/4 cup brown sugar together. Once this mixture is fluffy, beat in 8 oz of cream cheese. Set aside to use for the cream cheese topping in a few minutes.

Combine the 2 remaining eggs and the 1/2 cup of brown sugar. Add vanilla and beet puree and watch your mixture transform! Fold in the chocolate and butter mixture. Combine the salt and flour mixture before slowly beating into the wet ingredients. When dry ingredients are well integrated, pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Drop dollops of the cream cheese topping onto the batter and use a spoon to swirl that gorgeous red color throughout the white. Bake for 45-50  minutes, until a knife comes out clean. Cut into a 25 pieces to stick with 2 point bites. Share it with your friends and family BEFORE you tell them their is a root vegetable in this fabulous dish you just made. Smiley cleverly as they dote over your baking brilliance. Ask them to rate the dessert on a scale of 1-10, a 1 being roasted beets and a 10 being Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies. After they give you a score of 8 or more, tell them about the magic.