Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Chocolate Chickpea Cake: Get some Extra Fiber

Once you spend enough time in the kitchen, you discover that some things almost always pair quite well together. Cinnamon and ginger. Tomatoes and cheese. Chocolate and chickpeas.

Wait what? Chocolate and chickpeas? How do those combine into anything edible?

Evidently, they can be combined to make a dense, deep chocolate cake.

I’d seen a few recipes for chickpea chocolate cake, and added it to my “someday” baking list. Then, I noticed that this week’s recipe linkup at Healthy Living Blogs, which I actually belong to (honestly), was for recipes featuring beans.

Well then. Time to make some cake. Chickpea cake. With chocolate.

Chocolate Chickpea Cake Ingredients (as adapted from Serious Eats)

4 ounces chopped bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled to room temperature (Scharffen Berger 70% Cocoa Bittersweet)

1 (15-ounce) chickpeas, rinsed and drained with sinks removed

¾ c egg replacement (such as EggBeaters)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup brown sugar

3 tablespoons sucralose (Splenda)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Line a 4”x8” loaf pan with parchment paper and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Puree beans, egg replacement, and vanilla in a food processor until smooth.

Doesn’t that, uh, not look like cake batter? It’s ok. Proceed by adding the sugar, baking powder and salt, blend until smooth. Then add the chocolate and blend until well-combined, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl several times to ensure that a uniform mixture is achieved. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.

Now this is starting to look kind of like a normal cake. Bake at 350°F for 40-45 minutes, until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10 minutes, remove from pan by lifting edges of parchment paper, then slice.

Since this cake is made from nontraditional ingredients, it should be no surprise that it doesn’t taste like a traditional cake. That being said, it is dense and moist, and offers a deep chocolate flavor without being very sweet.

And if you slice this into 10 pieces, each piece has only 120 calories and 4.5 grams of fat. To boot, it also packs 2.5 grams of fiber.

A perfect recipe for healthy living with chocolate, no?

Have you ever made a bean-based cake? How did it turn out?

19 comments:

  1. I've never made a cake like that....but what with all the extra fiber and only 120-calories per serving, its perfectly ok to eat half the cake right? =P

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  2. Wow, that sure is...creative? Actually, I find this recipe pretty intriguing; I bet it has a really interesting flavor!

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  3. Ah! I've been meaning to make that since I saw it weeks ago on SE! I just accidentally keep making other things which take days for me to finish :P Now that it's got your tick of approval, I MSUT get to it! :)

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  4. So cool! I've never made a bean cake (or even knew you could!). I am really fascinated by this recipe and like the idea of getting a chocolate fix that is healthier and a little different.

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  5. Wow this is such an awesome recipe! I've heard lots about black bean brownies but have never tried making them. This looks incredible!

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  6. Oh, this is intriguing! I'm not into Splenda though and would make it less healthy with sugar. :) I've seen brownies made with black beans, but think this is my first time seeing chickpea cake. I thought it was going to use chickpea flour...interesting!

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  7. Wow, I never realized that chickpeas and chocolate go well together, but I may just have to try this recipe out! Haha. The only thing is I hate using splenda (as opposed to sugar) when baking, for some reason. I guess I feel like my Italian grandma would yell at me for that =)

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  8. I wonder if there is a good bean to incorporate with yellow cakes?
    Katherine

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  9. I have a can of chickpeas and a bar of chocolate just sitting on my counter taking up space. Hmm. HMMMMMMM. I might be getting an idea....

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  10. Interisting recipe! I'm very curious to try it.

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  11. I'm going to a tasting where butter was replaced by Hellmann's Mayo so really... why not chickpeas. I'll have to try this but wow... just wow... weird ;-)

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  12. @fitchocoholic Sure! But maybe space it out over a few days, the chocolate flavor is intense.

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  13. @Mary at n00bcakes It seems to more affect the texture than the flavor - flavor is like a very intense dark chocolate.

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  14. @Jessica @ bake me away! Very easy to just substitute sugar for the Splenda - I do replacement sometimes when I feel like I'm a bit over-sugared.

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  15. @cyclicalunemployment I think garbanzo beans would work as long as you also included very high quality vanilla to make it really taste like cake.

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  16. @Mostly About Chocolate Blog A lot of people baking gluten free use chickpea flour - in this case, you just get a bit of extra moisture, which means you can leave out butter since you get some fat from the chocolate.

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  17. I have to admit I am both wheat *and* legume intolerant so I just eat it and accept I'll be unwell. Thechickpea flour didn't look like cake batter but if it was yummy who can argue?
    :-D

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  18. oooh, this looks fabulous, Victoria!! thanks for telling me about it (don't know HOW I missed it!) and perhaps this will be my next chickpea baking adventure...

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