You'll Never Guess The Secret Ingredient In These (Vegan, GF) Red Velvet Brownies

While red velvet is often made from food coloring, it was originally the product of beets—and in this recipe from her new book, Vegetable Cakes, Ysanne Spevack harkens back to the original. While Vegetable Cakes features some pretty out-there creations (including desserts featuring kale and other leafy greens!), this one is actually fairly intuitive—the beets add an earthy sweetness that perfectly complements chocolate's rich flavor.

According to Spevack, it isn't actually that hard to incorporate vegetables into desserts. "I never use an ingredient and try to mask its flavor," she says. "With vegetables, I am celebrating their delicate herbal flavors. The easiest way people understand this is by talking about lavender—lavender isn't sweet; it has a very 'green' flavor, but nobody questions how this herbal flavor is suited to a cake. That's how it goes for all the vegetables I've incorporated into cakes and desserts. That delicate herbal notes of anything from spinach to radishes are presented in a new and exciting way isn't about smuggling veggies into desserts but celebrating their wonderful flavors in a new context."

These brownies also feature a delicate floral sweetness, courtesy of a few drops of rose essential oil, and a perfect fudgy texture, which they owe to aquafaba, the liquid leftover in chickpea cans.