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Gina @ The Passionate Pantry

Sarah's Magic Bean Chocolate Cake

[cap id="attachment_2341" align="aligncenter" width="300"]Fabulous texture and a pleasure to eat![/cap]

I am so inspired by people who are truly clever cooks, and Sarah Wong (known as “Clever Cook”) comes up with some amazing recipes. Her original recipe for “Magic Bean Chocolate Cake” was developed in 2011 (see main screen for link), but I decided to fiddle with it a little to make a larger cake for a friend who needed a GF and nut free cake for an upcoming wedding.

When dealing with baked chocolate goodies I do like to add a little coffee … you won’t taste it but it certainly heightens the chocolate flavour so I would encourage you to use it.

You can use any tinned beans you like, but chickpeas and soy beans are a bit strong and can affect the ultimate flavour of the cake. I have used kidney beans, butter beans, canelli beans and bortolli beans in this recipe all with great success.

I used light muscovado sugar (or brown sugar) as it adds a gorgeous richness, and chose to use Dutch cocoa powder for its depth of flavour … again I would encourage you to go with these adaptions if you are looking to make a rich, deeply flavoured chocolate cake. The taste is so delicious I would definitely consider serving this as a dessert along with some berries and a rich cream. It also cuts perfectly so that is a positive when wanting to get a certain “look” on a dessert plate.

For more information on the difference between Dutch cocoa and natural (regular) cocoa see the link on the main screen.

Although I haven’t tied it, Sarah suggests you can use an oil instead of butter if you need to make the cake dairy free, and in that case I would recommend using a light olive oil which is what I use when baking.

I have tested this recipe as a small loaf, and have also doubled the ingredients to make a much larger 24cm round cake, so I have given the ingredients for both to make it easier for you. Method is the same except just at the end I found I needed to mix the double quantity for a few seconds longer.
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Prep Time 10 minutes
Total Time 10 minutes
Servings: 1 loaf or cake
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

INGREDIENTS FOR LOAF – BASE MEASUREMENT 22cm x 9cm

  • 420 g tin of beans red kidney, cannelli, butter, or bortolli, drained and rinsed
  • 1 tbls coffee granules
  • 20 g filtered water
  • 20 g vanilla extract

  • 125 g butter room temperature, cut into cubes
  • 180 g light muscovado sugar or brown sugar

  • 5 x 60g eggs

  • 70 g Dutch cocoa powder
  • 1 tsp sea salt flakes
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp bi carb soda

INGREDIENTS FOR CAKE – BASE MEASUREMENT 24cm

  • 2 x 420g tin of beans drained and rinsed
  • 2 tbls coffee granules
  • 40 g filtered water
  • 40 g vanilla extract

  • 250 g butter room temperature, cut into cubes
  • 360 g light muscovado sugar or brown sugar

  • 10 x 60g eggs

  • 140 g Dutch cocoa powder
  • 2 tsp sea salt flakes
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp bi carb soda

Method
 

  1. Grease and line tin of choice
  2. Preheat oven to 180 degrees fan forced and place rack into middle of oven
  3. Place beans, water, coffee and vanilla into TM bowl and blend 1 minute x speed 7
  4. Scrape around bowl and blend for a further 1 minute / speed 6
  5. Add butter and sugar and blend 2 minutes / speed 4
  6. Set machine to speed 4 and add remaining eggs one at a time through hole in lid … once last egg has been added allow machine to run for a further 20 seconds
  7. Add cocoa, salt, baking powder and bi carb soda and mix 10 seconds / speed 4
  8. Scrape around bowl
  9. FOR LOAF: mix 2 seconds / speed 4
  10. FOR CAKE: mix 6 seconds / speed 5
  11. Pour batter into prepared tin
  12. FOR LOAF: bake 50 minutes (takes exactly 50 minutes in my oven)
  13. FOR CAKE: 1 hour 10 minutes (takes exactly 1 hour 10 minutes in my oven) or until a skewer inserted into middle comes out clean
  14. Allow to cool for 15 minutes before removing and placing on a rack to cool completely (for the loaf I kept it upright and placed it onto cooling rack using the baking paper to help remove it from the tin, for the cake I turned it upside down onto the cooling rack and allowed it to cool completely before turning it upright onto the serving plate)
  15. Cake is delicious just as it is without any icing, but if you want to make it extra special would suggest you use a dark chocolate ganache