Flourless Chickpea Chocolate Cake

This past weekend was so beautiful - the first real Spring weekend! Sun, birds chirping, and buds on every tree - what a contrast from just a few weeks ago. We've made every excuse to go outside and enjoy the weather this weekend - I hope you have too! (I'm convinced the weather here makes everyone seasonally bipolar...now that it's Spring, I'm trending on the hypomanic side).

I originally made this flourless chickpea cake before I got caught up in a couple of busy weeks on frozen section at work. If you've never heard of frozen sections before, it's when pathologists provide intraoperative consultations to surgeons, who generally need to know if either:

 a) they got the whole tumor out

 b) what kind of tumor it is

Overall,  frozen sections is a good rotation to be on, but the hours can be long and unpredictable. On a positive note, when days are long, they blend together and the week is over before you know it.

The first time I made this cake, it was gone so quickly that I never got a chance to document its existence. It was like a Snapchat cake - now you see it, now you don't. This is now my third time baking with chickpeas. Let me tell you - they are definitely good for so much more than just hummus! And just like before (see my Apple Garbanzo Bean Cake from earlier), you really won't know that there are chickpeas in this. No bean-y taste whatsoever. I love this cake for several reasons - chickpeas are a fantastic source of minerals (folate, zinc, magnesium), protein, and insoluble fiber. Insoluble fiber is broken down towards the end of your colon into short chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which is food for your colon cells. Treat these guys well. They work really hard. 

Microscopic picture of colon cells - Image courtesy of Pathguy

Second, the sweeteners are really kept to a minimum in this cake, but with the rich cocoa, you really won't miss any flavor at all. If you're new to chickpeas, or just skeptical (I was too), I still hope you'll give this cake a try. It's so nutritious and still tastes like chocolate cake. It's becoming a regular for us, and I hope you'll enjoy it too! 

Flourless Chickpea Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

1 fifteen oz can chickpeas (if using no salt added chickpeas, add 1/4 tsp salt to your batter; if using salt-added chickpeas, leave out any additional salt)

4 large eggs

2 heaping tablespoons cocoa

1/4 cup dark chocolate chips, melted

1/2 cup plain greek yogurt

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp almond extract

1/4 cup honey

1/2 tsp baking powder

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350F. Lightly oil a 13x9 inch pan

2. Puree chickpeas, vanilla extract, and almond extract in a food processor until very smooth

3. Add remaining ingredients, and stir well to incorporate. Your batter should be smooth and look like this:

4. Bake for approximately 15-20 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean

5. Let cool. Sprinkle lightly with some powdered sugar or whipped cream (or not), and enjoy!

Thanks for reading,

-R

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