“You Can’t Name It THAT!” Chocolate Cake

Words and photos by Mother Ship.

Yum? Yes, yum.

Given that I am on a pretty restrictive diet, I have had to alter the way I eat most foods. I’ve become pretty good at swapping out ingredients to make old favourite recipes gluten, dairy, meat and refined white sugar free, without forsaking flavour.  Personally, I find packaged and prepared gluten-free baked goods overcompensate for lack of flavour by adding tons of sugar and I just don’t have a natural sweet tooth.

Last year, my dear friend Kadra hosted me for lunch and had clearly gone to a lot of trouble

to come up with a meal and a dessert to suit my diet. I know someone likes me alot  when they’ll put up with all my dietary junk and cook for me! She came out with a divine looking chocolate cake. I gasped after the first bite. It was divine tasting too!

“Ok, so it has no flour. So what is it?” I asked her.

“Chickpeas! I’ve made it before and everyone liked so I thought you would too.”

I left lunch with the recipe and half the cake.

When another friend’s birthday rolled around we decided to have a luncheon at my house. My friend and party co-host Susan asked if she could bring dessert and I told her I really wanted to try out the chocolate chickpea cake recipe I had recently acquired.

“You can’t call  it THAT! NO ONE will eat it.” Susan told me over the phone.

Seriously though, Susan is an adventurous eater and if she is telling me I can’t call the cake chocolate chickpea cake I wondered what I should call it then?

“Garbanzo cake? “ I ask.

“No! Ohhh I know! Mediterranean Surprise!” Susan offered.

Of course Susan called me the next day to tell me that she brought up the name Mediterranean Surprise with her husband and he said:

“YOU CAN’T CALL IT THAT!  It sounds like a Greek man wearing ball huggers is going to jump out of the cake.“

We laughed and when we hung up I really couldn’t get the image out of my head of a banana hammock wearing Greek Adonis named Yanni leaping gracefully from the top of a dense flourless chocolate cake.

Of course, the cake was a hit. Everyone left with a slice to take home and I came back to have another bite and decided I had to play with the recipe again. I had already subbed out the ¾ cups nasty white sugar for agave and maple syrup but this cake was crying out for heat. Not the Greek Adonis kind but the chili peppers kind.

So here, my new friends, is the latest incarnation of “YOU CAN’T NAME IT THAT – Chocolate Cake.” A signature cake in my repertoire of molesting recipes and making them allergy-friendly and DELICIOUS!

“You Can’t Name It That!” Chocolate Cake
(gluten free/dairy free)

Prep: 15 minutes Cook: 25 – 30 minutes (ish – check your oven temp)
Serves 12

Ingredients:

• 1-½ cups unsweetened baking chocolate (I use Baker’s Brand)
• 1 ½ 15oz Cans of chickpeas drained and rinsed.
• 4 eggs
• ¼ Cup Agave
• 2 Tbsp Maple Syrup
• ½ tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. cayenne pepper or chili powder of your liking

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9” round cake tin.

Place your chocolate in a double boiler and melt over medium heat.

Combine chickpeas and eggs in a food processor and blend until smooth. Add in the agave, maple syrup, baking soda and cayenne and pulse until blended. Pour in the melted chocolate and blend until smooth.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. The cake will pull away from the side of the cake tin as well, as a visual indication the cake is done.

Let the cake cool about 10 minutes on a wire rack and then flip it over onto a serving plate. Decorate to your liking with fresh whip cream (or dairy free alternative), coconut, strawberries or raspberries and shaved chocolate.

High in protein, no simple sugars, no flour, no dairy and with a sexy kick in the pants of heat… this cake remains nameless. Unless, you think Greek Banana Hammock Cake has a nice ring to it. But it is kind of misleading since the recipe does not call for bananas. Why don’t you leave me a comment with your best ideas for naming this cake? Be sassy and be PG … or not!

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