Last Thursday night, the Melbourne Cake Club had a meeting at Groove Train in South Yarra. The theme for this month's meeting was "Mystery Ingredient". After some extensive Internet searching, I decided to make a black bean chocolate cake, with black bean as my secret ingredient. The recipe is online here. It is a gluten free cake.
For Cake Club, I dressed up the cake with chocolate water icing rather than the sugar free buttercream accompanying the recipe:
I had never made a black bean cake before, and the first thing that struck me was how funky those canned black beans smelled. Yuk! It did not inspire confidence in what the cake would be like.
Another worrying thing when I was making this cake is that the batter was very liquid - it was so runny that I had doubts that it would set.
However, the end result was astonishing. The cake was dense, moist and chocolatey, and most definitely did not smell funky - in fact, it smelled just like chocolate cake should. The crumb of the cake was very smooth - all round, this cake was a winner, even if I didn't make it look very pretty:
Other cakes at the Melbourne Cake Club Mystery Ingredient event were Sue's gluten free tomato soup spice cake:
Abi's Vegemite caramel chocolate cake:
and Dalya's tomato soup spice cake with raisins:
Here are my spoils from the evening all arranged neatly on the cake board:
It was another fun night with the Melbourne Cake Club.
7 comments:
Hi Gaye:)
Oh my word that cake looks yummy! Actually all the cakes sound quite intriguing. I remember tomato soup cakes from way back when, lol (right up there with Mayonnaise Cake:)...I actually have been craving black bean brownies for a couple of weeks now. I finally bought the beans yesterday. Perhaps I should try a cake instead. I LOVED the brownies so I'm sure I would enjoy this cake too. I found rinsing the beans thoroughly helped combat the smell. As you said though there is no beany smell when baked. When I baked the brownies, I had to convince people that there were beans in them. I'm sure it's the same with your lovely the cake.
Thanks so much for sharing, Gaye...Hope all is well in your little corner of the world:)
sounds so much fun - I really want to join the group but am not sure I can commit to it - but I would have loved a slice of each of these cakes! Glad your black bean cake turned out well - I must try it as I did enjoy some black bean slice I made a while back!
I've heard so much about this cake that I really should give it a go! And the fact that you had the same reactions as I would but it turned out so well means a lot! :D
I am glad you could be converted to black beans in chocolate baking :-) Your cake looks delicious and the other mystery ingredients sound intriguing too.
Dear Gaye, this Cake Club sounds like so much fun - what a great way to meet friends, share recipes and enjoy ansolutely delicious cake! You black bean cake sounds very different and it looks moist and very indulgent. I have never baked wth beans before but I am known to use red beets and potatoes every once in a while. The other mystery ingredient choices sound and look wonderful too - what a great idea for a club!
Andrea
Snap, I have made black bean chocolate cake for my gluten and dairy free friends and it is sooo good. People who ate it didn't even know. What a fabulous challenge, though I am a bit worried about anything with Vegemite after the Cadbury chocolate fiasco earlier this year!!
I enjoyed reading about the different secret ingredients in the cakes from the cake club, who knew you could put these things in cakes??? Not me! I like the idea of black beans being in your cake, I love black beans a lot and am always sneaking them in savory things...I never once thought to sneak them into a cake! Very fun idea. I just love this cake club deal, each month it will be wonderful to see what you all have as a theme and what you all come up with.
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