Flourless Black Bean Chocolate Cake (gluten-free!)
Simply the best black bean cake I’ve ever tried. This fudgy, tight-crumbed, soft cake will make up for all the black bean baking failures you’ve ever had. No one will believe there's a whole can of black beans in it!
Servings: 6 slices
Calories: 310kcal
Equipment
- 2 6" cake pans Other options: 8" or 9" cake pan, 8x8" or 9x9" pan
Ingredients
For the cake
- 1 15.5 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed* or 1.5 cups cooked black beans (~270-290g)
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar 150g
- 4 large eggs 200g
- 5 tbsp melted butter or oil of your choice (vegetable, canola, grapeseed, avocado, a mild olive oil or refined coconut oil all work) 70g
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 5 tbsp cocoa (Dutch-process preferred) 26g
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
Instructions
Make the cake
- Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and line 2 6" round cake pans** with parchment paper.
- In a high speed blender or food processor, puree the beans, sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla until completely smooth.
- Add the cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda directly to the blender and blend until smooth.
- Divide batter equally into prepared pans and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the top springs back and an inserted tester comes out clean with just a few crumbs. Let cool for 5 minutes before flipping the cake onto a cooling rack. Make the frosting as the cake cools completely. (I recommend this chocolate Greek yogurt frosting!)
Video
Notes
*If using from-scratch black beans cooked with no salt, add 1/4 tsp kosher salt to the cake batter. You may sub chickpeas, butter beans, cannellini beans, kidney beans or red beans for the black beans.
**If baking in an 8" or 8x8" pan, the bake time will remain around 30-35 minutes. If baking in a 9" or 9x9" pan, start checking for doneness around 25 minutes, but it will likely be done closer to 30 minutes.
I've tested this cake with both olive oil and butter. I slightly prefer the flavor and texture of butter, but oil will achieve very similar results. Make sure to use a mild olive oil so it doesn't overpower the flavor. If you choose another oil like coconut oil, I always prefer using a refined coconut oil to remove any coconut flavor.
This cake originally came from here; since the website has now been taken down, I wanted to reshare it here.
Nutrition
Serving: 6 | Calories: 310kcal | Carbohydrates: 40g | Protein: 10g | Fat: 13g | Saturated Fat: 7g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 4g | Trans Fat: 0.4g | Cholesterol: 149mg | Sodium: 567mg | Potassium: 342mg | Fiber: 7g | Sugar: 25g | Vitamin A: 474IU | Vitamin C: 2mg | Calcium: 92mg | Iron: 3mg