Chocolate Chickpea Cake -- The Chickpea Weekend Continues...

I still had a lot of chickpeas left over from my massive 'chickpea boiling' session earlier this weekend. I thought it was a great opportunity to satisfy my sweet and chocolate cravings by making a cake out of it.  I know, it sounds a little odd.. chickpeas and cake? Yeah, I was a little skeptical about it too. I read though, that it makes for a great substitute for flour in cakes. Because it sounded so odd to me, it made me even more curious to try it out. Plus, the chocolate cravings were really at an all time high this weekend and I needed to change that. I told my sister about making this cake -- who is also allergic to gluten -- and she immediately reacted with "ew." Time to prove her wrong. (Spoiler alert: I sure did prove her wrong!)

Chocolate Chickpea Cake!!

I used this recipe for the chickpea cake. However, I did alter a few things; I used caster sugar instead of white sugar and used bars of chocolate instead of chocolate chips. This is probably the fastest cake I have ever made!! Super duper easy and you need very little ingredients.

Side note -- you do need a food processor to make this cake.

Chocolate Chickpea Cake

Ingredients:

• 2 bars of semisweet chocolate (113 grams each) -- melted in microwave
• 570 grams chickpeas
• 4 eggs
• 185 grams sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tbsp icing sugar

It All Began With a Bunch of Chickpeas...

...And Two Bars of Semisweet Chocolate

I found chocolate bars that are a 100% cacao, meaning that there is no milk added to the chocolate and therefore dairy free and friendly to those who are allergic! Generally when chocolate says it is "unsweetened" it means that it does not contain dairy. 

-- I made the mistake of eating a piece of this chocolate by itself. Wow: terribly bitter and strong!!! Unless you really love dark chocolate and I mean, VERY dark chocolate, I suggest to not take a bite. Luckily it will be mixed in with the chickpeas!

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease a 23 inch cake tin.
2. Place the chickpeas and eggs in a food processor and blend until the mixture is smooth. Add in the sugar and the baking powder. Process until the ingredients are mixed well together. Finally, add in the melted chocolate and continue to process. Put the ingredients in the cake tin.
3. Bake the cake for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick, fork or knife comes out clean after inserting it into the cake. Let the cake cool, take it out of the tin and dust it with icing sugar to finish!

The Mixture

Ready for the Oven

Hot Hot Hot Out of the Oven

Ready to be Eaten!! -- From Chickpeas to Beauty

To be quite honest, I was very pleasantly surprised that chickpeas had the ability to be turned into THAT -- something so wonderful looking and sweet. Chickpeas are quite the powerful food! Of course, I made my entire family try it. My sister mentioned it to be "the best cake ever." A great improvement from "ew." I myself found the cake a little bit dry and the chocolate taste a little too strong -- because of the very dark chocolate used. Although, I thought it tasted good. I guess it all depends on your chocolate preference.

I will definitely make this again in the future but try to play a little bit with changing the moisture and strong chocolate taste. I think that maybe I should try using dairy-free milk chocolate chips. That way the dark chocolate taste will not be so strong. Minus the little critical points, the cake was lovely!

I have always been more of a cooker than a baker and am always terrified of taking on a baking project. I have a fear of massively messing it all up and it tasting horrible, especially with something completely different like a cake made out of chickpeas... But I guess this one was a success for the most part! My family was for sure happy with how it tasted and I for sure, have satisfied my chocolate cravings! 

Good night!