Beans, beans the magical fruit

Let's start here, shall we:


Ah, cake. Good old fashioned chocolate cake. Kind of.

In following the South Beach diet, I have been trying to find some suitable desserts to curb my occaisional sweet tooth while keeping my renegade blood sugar under control. You may be thinking that chocolate cake is NOT on the South Beach diet, nor is chocolate cake a choice diabetic treat.

Both keen observations.

So, what was a desperate, dieting diabetic to do?? I wanted to make a cake that was sugar free, butter free, OH and FLOUR free as well. So what is the secret ingredient? As you may have deduced from the title of the entry:

YES, beans!
NO!!! You are not hallucinating!
Stay with me til the end! Let me explain!

For years I have heard about 'black bean brownies' on Weight Watchers, but I turned my nose up at them. I had no desire to try them, mainly because it sounded disgusting. But once I started focusing on my blood sugar and overall health a few weeks ago, I stumbled on a recipe for black bean brownies again.

I admit I was feeling a little adventurous and probably a bit woozy and punchy from lack of carbohydrates, because suddenly the idea of brownies made from beans sounded like a good idea.

I plotted my course and bought my ingredients. I was determined to conceal my baking from the husband cause I didn't want him to know what was going into his dessert. It was quite the clandestine production, and I think I was most excited about 'tricking' Christopher into eating cake made out of beans.

I kind of followed the recipe, but added some things (like instant coffee) and tweaked amounts of things (like adding more baking powder for a more cakey result, and tripling the amount of vanilla).

I started by draining and rinsing a can of black beans:

I rinsed them good and long, put them in a mixing bowl and to that added 3 eggs:

To that, I added 4 tablespoons of good baking cocoa, 2 tablespoons of oil, a pinch of salt, 3/4 of a cup of Splenda, 2 heaping teaspoons of baking powder, 2 to 4 teaspoons of instant coffee and a tablespoon of vanilla extract:

I used my stick blender to process it until it was smooth and looked like actual cake batter and poured it into a greased round pan:

Then I smoothed it with the spatula:

I popped it into the convection oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes and took this out:

Here is where I get a little excited. It smelled like cake. It looked like cake. It WAS cake. To be honest, I was a bit dumbfounded. I am not sure what I expected, but it wasn't for it to be this realistic! With high hopes, I cut it into squares. It had a very spongy and light texture. Bravely, I took a small bite, and folks, the heavens opened up above me.

When I tell you that I have never been so surprised with the result of something I made in the kitchen before...I mean it.

I was totally SHOCKED. It wasn't just GOOD, it was delicious. It tasted like chocolate cake! Granted, not the worlds best chocolate cake, but for a sugar, dairy and flour free cake, it could kick some serious ass in a 'healthy' cake competition.

I took a square to my husband and could hardly contain my giddiness, which in turn made him very suspicious. I couldn't stop giggling. He tasted it and said 'It's good, why are you laughing?' To which I replied, with smug glee, 'Guess what's in it!!!" Of course he couldn't and when I practically shouted 'BEANS!!!!!', he couldn't believe it either!

So, I am on a bean cake crusade! I took a ziploc bag full of bean cake squares to work and made my co-workers eat them.

They are so trusting of me.

Each time a person ate them, I repeated my annoying routine from the night before: 'Guess what's in them????, BEANS!!!!!'. By the afternoon, I had my spiel down. After a bite was taken, I would say: 'Ok, these are sugar free. Dairy free. No butter. and, oh, no flour.' That really got people's attention. They would usually say 'What are they made of??' and that was when I got the whole 'BEANS!!!!' thing in again!

Seriously friends, TRY THESE!!

Because there is no sugar, my blood sugar reacts well.
Because there is no flour, my blood sugar reacts even better!

They are high in fiber and protein and low in carbohydrates.

They are magic.

I promise.