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Cake, Chocolate, Dairy free, dessert, Gluten free, Healthy, Paleo, Recipes

Yes, folks, now we’ve got a breakthrough recipe. Cake–for dinner! It’s true, honest! This cake is so good for you –no flour, no sugar, and optionally no dairy- and yet it tastes good! It’s moist, and chocolatey, and makes you say oh-boy-can-we-have-that-again-soon?

Know what the cake is made of? You don’t? Weeeeellll, maybe I shan’t tell you. After all, I know you’ll like the cake, and I don’t want to make it so you don’t try it.
All right, I’ll tell you……

Beans.

Yes ma’am, beans! Oh, come now, it isn’t as bad as you think it is. I promise that it doesn’t taste like beans. If you didn’t know, you’d never guess that beans were the foundation of this lovely cake! Take my word for it. Honest. It’s really, really good. And that’s coming from the gal who does NOT like cake. At all. When I was little, I used to have Texas Chocolate Cake for my birthday and eat only the frosting. But now I can have my cake and eat it, too–literally! And it’s so very easy to make. Just give yourself a days’ leeway, since it has to sit overnight to develop flavor. After that, just whip up your frosting, and there you go! I often will mix the cake up and bake it after dinner, then frost and serve the next day. I imagine that you could freeze it, but around here it never lasts long enough for me to try the experiment! 😀

Notes in italics are mine.

Healthy Flourless Chocolate Cake

makes a 9″ layer cake or one 9X13 single layer

1 1/2 -2 cups cooked black beans (I’ve used pink beans too–makes no difference. After cooking your beans–I always cook a lot extra so’s I can use them for dinner sometime soon, in black bean soup or such)
5 large eggs
1 TBS pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. sea salt
6 TBS unsalted butter OR coconut oil
Sweetener:
3/4 cup erythritol+1/2 tsp pure stevia extract + 1 TBS water
OR 1/2 cup honey+1 teaspoon pure stevia extract
OR pure stevia extract to taste, with extra water (a TBS or more) added to replace the moisture of the honey. If you don’t add the water, your cake will be dry.
6 TBS unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

Mint Chocolate Variation:
2 teaspoons mint extract (in place of vanilla)

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray a 9″ cake pan (I use a 9X13 baking dish) with extra virgin olive oil cooking spray, or just grease it with a thin layer of butter (or coconut oil if you’re trying to go dairy free). Dust cocoa all over the inside of the pan, tapping to evenly distribute. Cut a round of parchment paper and line the bottom of the pan, then grease the parchment lightly. (Since I was using a baking dish and didn’t intend on removing the cake before serving, I didn’t use parchment paper.)

Drain and rinse beans in a strainer or colander. (Make sure to rinse your beans WELL. Rinse them until they no longer foam and bubble. This will remove the factor which gives beans an ill reputation in mannerly circles) Shake of excess water. Place beans, 3 of the 5 eggs, vanilla, stevia (if using), and salt into blender. Blend on high until beans are completely liquified. No lumps!
Whisk together cocoa powder, baking soda, and baking powder. Beat butter with sweetener (erythitol or honey) until light and fluffy. Add remaining two eggs, beating for a minute after each addition. Pour bean batter into egg mixture and mix. Finally, stir in cocoa powder and water (if using), and beat the batter on high for one minute, until smooth. Scrape batter into pan and smooth the top. Grip pan firmly by the edges and rap it on the counter a few times to pop any air bubbles.

Bake for 40-45 minutes. Cake is done when the top is rounded and firm to the touch. After 10 minutes of standing out of the oven, (if using a cake pan), turn cake out of pan and flip over again onto a cooling rack. Let cool until cake reaches room temperature, then cover in plastic wrap or with cake dome (could use an overturned plastic chip bowl). For BEST flavor, let cake sit overnight. I promise this cake will not have a hint of beaniness after letting it sit for eight hours! If you are stacking this cake, level the top with a serrated knife, shaving off layers until it is flat and even.
Frost immediately before serving. You can use any sort of frosting you please, if you’re not worried about sugar! Store cake IN THE REFRIGERATOR. Beans are highly spoilable–if you store the cake in the open, it’s gonna mold very quickly, which can cause symptoms of sadness, despair and wild sobbing. When refrigerated, it will be hard, but you can always set it out before you eat it, then refrigerate again…We have eaten it by itself (chocolate doesn’t need any help, says they), or with strawberries and whipped cream (oh!), or with raspberries. I like my raspberries frozen (which is the condition they’re in in these pictures). But no matter how you eat it, you MUST have a glass of milk alongside. Take it from an expert. Everything tastes better with milk.

~Healthy Chocolate Buttercream Frosting~

Some like this frosting alone as a fudge! It’s very dark chocolatey, so not everybody likes it.

Makes enough to thickly cover one layer, or fill and frost a halved stacked layer.

1/2 cup (I stick) unsalted organic butter, softened, OR 7 tablespoons nonhydrogenated shortening (I use coconut oil)
1/4cup plus 1 TBS erythritol, powdered, OR 1/4 cup xylitol, powdered
5-6 TBS half and half OR coconut milk
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
pinch of sea salt
Good tasting pure Stevia extract, to taste (I use NuNaturals® &reg NuStevia powder. Doesn’t take much! If you use solely stevia (not erythritol or xylitol), then I would suggest supplementing it with honey to taste. Otherwise the cocoa powder stays bitter and makes the frosting taste almost dry.)
Optional addition for a glossy finish:
1 fresh organic egg yolk

Cream butter in a small bowl until fluffy. Powder erythritol or xylitol in a coffee grinder or Magic Bullet for a minute or two, until extremely fine in texture (reminiscent of powdered sugar). Let sweetener settle in grinder before opening the top. Stir powdered sweetener into butter with a spatula, then beat until smooth. Slowly blend in the cocoa powder (unless you want to redecorate your kitchen), vanilla, and sea salt. Beat in the half and half and egg yolk (if using). Add stevia, starting with 1/16 teaspoon. (I don’t use erythritol or xylitol, just sweeten the whole thing with stevia until it tastes right). You’ll probably use less than 1/4 tsp…just keep tasting and adjust the sweetness to your liking. (Be careful. Stevia is powerful stuff. 😀 )

We use coconut oil in place of the butter. It is the opinion of a local chocolate lover (whom, I’ll have you know is NOT me) that the frosting, when put into a pan and refrigerated sans the cake, is better than a truffle. Very rich and chocolatey, and with the coconut oil supplying a very healthy fat, is a treat that is actually good for you!

*For those of you poor people who count carbs, this frosting is 7g net carbs, if you are using erythritol.

The cake is 57.6g net carbs for the whole cake, using erythritol/stevia. (5.7g net carbs per 1/10th)

It’s 125.6g net carbs for the whole cake using honey/stevia. (12.56g net carbs per 1/10th)

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So there you are! Now you have a lovely, moist cake, and no one needs to know what your secret ingredient is (nor do they need to know that it’s dairy free, grain free, and paleo-friendly!). Thanks to a kind commenter, I can now give credit for this recipe to the Healthy Indulgences blog— which I’d never seen before, but oh! She’s got some wonderful looking recipes there. 😀 Run over and thank her profusely, would you? (She’s also got a vanilla version of this cake here)

This recipe was included in the Allergy-Free Wednesdays link-up, the Waste Not Want Not link up, and who-knows-where else………..

The frosting may look a bit ‘drippy’ because I was out of coconut milk, and I replaced it with coconut oil which was warm and thin. Once the cake got refrigerated, it firmed right up.

Check out our other allergy-free recipes!

Gluten free Spritz sugar cookies

Paleo Lemon Bars

Gluten free, sugar free, dairy free banana bread