You’ll be pleasantly surprised by how good this mini Black Bean Chocolate Cake tastes, it’s a yummy guilt-free treat for the whole family!
This Black Bean Chocolate Cake will WOW you!
We all know how tricky it can be to create healthy snacks or meals that will please everyone in the family. I managed to do so with HALLOUMI FRITTERS and it happened again when I made this black bean chocolate cake! YAY!!
You’re probably saying ‘Oh gosh Cat, not you too! I’ve seen it before and you’ll never convince me that beans taste good in a cake’.
Hey, I don’t blame you at all! I’m forever questioning healthy food ‘fads’ that become viral. In fact, when the word healthy is attached to foods I automatically assume it’ll taste ‘meh’. I can’t help it, I just love and prefer using real full-fat dairy and sugar in my cooking!
However, I’m no skinny-mini so if I want to fit through my door I need to watch what I eat. It was during one of my diets when I bit the bullet and joined the cool trend. I caved in and made mini cakes using black beans as the base ingredient.
I wasn’t expecting much, I just wanted to create a healthy sweet treat that I could snack on without feeling too guilty.
BUT DAMN, I was in for a real surprise when I bit into one of the cakes. For a healthy treat, it was so delicious! If I didn’t make them myself I wouldn’t have the slightest idea that it was a flourless cake made from beans! The black bean cake was moist and crumbled in my mouth, just like a real cake, and gosh It even looks like a cake!
Still not convinced? you’ll just have to trust me and make this, you won’t regret it! Plus there’s hardly any prep involved, you just throw everything into a food processor and bake!
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The life of a yo-yo dieter
Our household has three adults that love to eat and EAT, but unfortunately, none of us is blessed with naturally skinny bodies. So we diet and put in some exercise…… then we shed some weight….. but only to but it back on a few months later. Yup welcome to our life of yo-yo dieting!
My sister Nara loves trying all sorts of popular diets, you name it, she’s tried it. Unlike Nara, I’ve always refused to enter into a diet that restricts me from eating what I want. Life is too short so I want to enjoy stuffing delicious fatty and sugary things in my face!
When I need to knock a few kilos off I grudgingly do calorie counting. At least this way I can still eat whatever I want as long as I don’t go over my daily calories allowance.
I was stunned by how many calories I consumed daily when I was dieting. Can you believe that 2 slices of toasts with peanut butter and a glass of orange juice rakes in approximately 500 calories? And that was just for breakfast, I basically used half of my daily calorie allowance in one meal!
My years of calorie counting was time-consuming and like all diets you needed commitment! The temptation of food had always been irresistible to me. It’s been a difficult life long battle to stay in shape!
I’m actually supposed to be on a diet now but failing miserably! So now is a great time to kick start my healthy eating by making my yummy low calories Black Bean treats.
The power of beans, get it on the plate!
Seriously, I could rave on all day and night about how much I love beans but I’ve done that already in my previous posts. So I’m going to be lazy and just copy and paste my own paragraph written in my CHORIZO AND BEANS recipe. It explains the health benefits of eating beans:
‘Beans are a good source of plant-based protein and contain fibre, antioxidants, iron, vitamins and minerals. It’s also known to keep cholesterol and blood sugar levels down.‘
Ever since Kai turned 8 months I’ve sneaked in lots of beans in his diet as shown in my WHITE BEANS FOR BABY recipe. Beans are great to feed Kai as they’re neutral-tasting, so unlike most veggies, he would happily eat them.
I made this batch of Black Bean Chocolate Cakes whilst Kai was napping, when he woke up I gave him one to try. The verdicts in….. and my 16-month-old food critic loves it!
When I can get Kai to happily eat my cooking, I feel a great sense of achievement as a cook and as a mother! These healthy cakes are easy and wonderful to get beans into Kai’s diet.
I can’t stop using beans in my recipes! So far I’ve made them with scrumptious creamy tomato sauce and served it with CHORIZO, I also added them to my MEXICAN CHICKEN BOWL
Ingredients for Black Bean Chocolate Cake
Many healthy black beans brownies, cakes or cookies recipes contain no sugar but rely on honey, maple syrup or stevia for sweetness. Doing this does lower the calories but I used sugar and real milk chocolate chips as I didn’t feel comfortable feeding my toddler the alternative type of sweeteners.
Black beans – make sure to rinse and drain the beans from the can.
Almond meal– Is blanched almonds that have been grounded.
Chocolate chips – I used sweetened milk chocolate chips but any variety may be used.
Cocoa powder – I used unsweetened cocoa powder.
Sugar – Feel free to use stevia to lower the calories further.
How to make Ingredients for Black Bean Chocolate Cake
Step by step guide with photos
Throw everything into a food processor!
Preheat the oven to 180°C (356°F) or for fan-forced ovens 160°C (320°F). Place the muffin cases in the baking tin and spray the inside of the cases generously with oil. If you prefer not to use muffin cases, you’ll need to grease the tin generously with butter or the cakes will stick to the tin.
Place the beans, sugar, cocoa, almond meal, vanilla, eggs and baking powder into a food processor or blender. Pulse and mix until no whole beans are visible and the mixture is well combined.
Mix in the chocolate chips and bake!
Add the chocolate chips into the bean mixture and mix well using a wooden spoon. Divide the mixture evenly into the prepared muffin tins (approximately 2/3 full). Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, the Black Bean cakes are cooked when the top cracks and a skewer comes out clean when inserted in the middle.
These cakes are best when served cold or at room temperature. Leftovers can be kept in the fridge in a sealed container, it will keep for up to 4 days.
Cooking measurements are in Australian standard spoon and cup measurements.
A Third-Party Application calculated the calories and nutritional information. Please use this as an approximate guide only.
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Cheers (I’ll drink to that) – Cat Tre
Black Bean Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
- 1 can black bean (400gm/14oz tin rinsed & drained) (NOTE 1)
- 3 large eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ cup sugar (NOTE 2)
- ¼ cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)
- ¼ cup almond meal (NOTE 3)
- ¾ cup chocolate chips (NOTE 4)
- Butter or oil spray to grease
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (356°F) or for fan-forced ovens 160°C (320°F). Place the muffin cases in the baking tin and spray the inside of the cases generously with oil. If you prefer not to use muffin cases, you'll need to grease the tin generously with butter or the cakes will stick to the tin.
- Place the beans, sugar, cocoa, almond meal, vanilla, eggs and baking powder into a food processor or blender. Pulse and mix until no whole beans are visible and the mixture is well combined.
- Add the chocolate chips into the bean mixture and mix well using a wooden spoon.
- Add the chocolate chips into the bean mixture and mix well. Divide the mixture evenly into the prepared muffin tins (approximately 2/3 full). Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, the Black Bean cakes are cooked when the top cracks and a skewer comes out clean when inserted in the middle.
