Despite my sincerest efforts, I do not care for red velvet cake.

I don’t hate it. I don’t love it. Overall, red velvet gives me a quantitative reaction of meh. Honestly, I’d rather lick the cream cheese icing off the top, toss the cake aside, then locate the Milky Way Midnight that’s lurking reliably at the bottom of my purse.

Not liking red velvet cake bothers me. Each time I am in a bakery, I find myself gravitating towards the red velvet cupcake, even though I know it will disappoint me, just like it did the prior four times I insisted on trying it. Like a sleazy, yet irritatingly hot ex-boyfriend, the red velvet cake flirts with me, making me feel pretty and luring me to give it another chance. Against my better judgment, I fall for its charms, convincing myself that red velvet has changed, that, this time, it will do me right. Our time together is fun at first (i.e. the cream cheese icing), but I quickly realize that, below the sultry exterior, lies only artificial food coloring and a weak character.

So why do I keep crawling back for more? You see, I feel as though I should like red velvet cake. It’s seductive. It contains chocolate. It’s a sassy color. Further, aside from my unwavering repulsion to mayo and ketchup (both of which my mother thought I would grow out of and neither of which I’ve come to tolerate), I rarely meet a food that doesn’t please my pallet in some way.

In fact, I annually taste both mayo and ketchup, just to check in and ensure they are still completely detestable. Which they are.

Though it might seem perverse to continue eating foods I don’t like, I’ve discovered that by “re-tasting,” I find culinary loves in ingredients I had previously scorned. Once a mushroom hater, I now would consider many of my dishes deprived without their earthy flavor. Formerly a beet foe, today I adore roasting them to add to salads, to serve as a quick side, and most recently, to create this bundt beauty:

CHOCOLATE BEET CAKE.

The jig is up, dear astute readers: I put beets in the cake. I almost didn’t tell you, for fear that you regard beets as “rubbery vegetable ick,” as I once did. You might also be completely offended by the fact that I put vegetables in a cake, period. Oh, how I desperately want to reach through your screen and serve you a slice!

Once you try a bite, you will understand that Chocolate Beet Cake tastes absolutely nothing like beets. The beets impart the cake with magic sweetness, crazy-intense moisture, and a lovely, subtle red tone, but that is all. Even I, a professed veggie-a-holic, don’t want my desserts to taste like produce. We are making cake, not salad.

Also, we will categorically want two (or three) servings of Chocolate Beet Cake, a desire the average eater does not associate with salad. The most dedicated of beet haters, dessert purists, and even red-velvet devotees will find Chocolate Beet Cake irresistible.

As its name would suggest, the chocolate in our in Chocolate Beet Cake is prevalent, much more so than in red-velvet (which does contain a hint of cocoa but is far too nuanced for me to appreciate). It does not, however, overwhelm. Don’t mistake me—my innermost core is comprised of 78% dark chocolate ganache, requiring me to eat truffles regularly to stay in good health—but sometimes I want a chocolate cake that is slowly satisfies, rather than immediately smacks, with its richness.

Chocolate Beet Cake is that yogi master of the chocolate cake world, balancing undeniable chocolate bliss, outrageous moisture, and a luscious gilding of cream-cheese frosting with light texture and taste.

Hire red velvet cake as the escort to your 10-year high school reunion. Bring Chocolate Beet Cake home to mom.

Adapted from “Farmer John’s Cookbook,” by John Peterson (Gibbs Smith, 2006)