The Fast 800 Chocolate Kidney Bean Cake – Simple & Tasty

High in Fibre, Simple & Tasty

The Fast 800 Chocolate Kidney Bean Cake

Nigella Lawson’s – Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake is not only my favourite chocolate cake recipe but it’s also one of the most popular recipes here on The Life of Stuff. It’s superb and you can read it here.

But along with its chocolaty splendidness, also comes its calorie luxuriousness. And because I’m currently doing the right thing by working on reducing my waistline and increasing my fitness, and because I believe in an after dinner treat, there was only one thing for it – to search for a ‘healthy‘ chocolate cake recipe. And I found one!

The Fast 800 Chocolate Kidney Bean Cake by Dr. Clare Bailey shouldn’t really be that nice when you think about its ingredients of red kidney beans, and no actual chocolate! But it is. In fact it got an unanimous thumbs up in our home, and with both a four year old and a six year old at the helm of our dining table ‘Yays’ or ‘Nays’, it really does say a lot!

The Fast 800 Chocolate Kidney Bean Cake has no added sugar, is high in fibre and if you are counting daily calories – you shouldn’t have a problem fitting its 250 in after a nutritious dinner. I’ve featured the recipe below along with step by step photographs to show you how easy it is to make. You can find the original recipe here on thefast800.com website.

The Fast 800 Chocolate Kidney Bean Cake Recipe

The Fast 800 Chocolate Kidney Bean Cake - Simple & Tasty - Coconut Oil, Vanilla Extract, Eggs

The Fast 800 Chocolate Kidney Bean Cake - Simple & Tasty - Red Kidney Beans, Cocoa Powder, Dates and Prunes

Ingredients:

400g tin red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 tbsp vanilla extract
5 small eggs
150g coconut oil
15 large soft pitted dates, diced
60g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp ground cinnamon
150g fresh raspberries or diced rhubarb

The Fast 800 Chocolate Kidney Bean Cake Method

with Step by Step Photographs

Preheat the oven to 150°C FAN.
Grease a 20cm round cake tin and line the base with lightly greased baking paper.
In a moderate-sized bowl blend the kidney beans, vanilla extract, eggs, 1 tbsp water, a pinch of salt and the coconut oil until smooth (about 4-5 minutes).
Then add the rest of the ingredients and mix them together well.
Pour the mixture into the cake tin.
Gently press the raspberries into the surface then bake it for about 30 minutes.
Remove the cake from the oven and leave it to cool for 10 minutes before turning it out on a rack.

Final Verdict & Baking Tips

The Fast 800 Chocolate Kidney Bean Cake is moist, tasty, and surprisingly chocolatey!
We didn’t wait for it to cool completely and enjoyed it warm from the oven. It was also delicious the next day completely cooled.
I didn’t have 15 large soft pitted dates – I had about 12 small/medium ones so I added an additional six prunes to the mixture to bulk it up, and it did the trick. Prunes can be used as a substitute for pitted dates.

Prunes are the first choice that can replace dates successfully. They taste like plums with sweet traces which are brought during the drying process.

Prunes are sticky and chewy. The key difference between the two is that the prunes are a fruit of their own, whereas prunes come from plums. They have a similar texture and taste which makes them a good substitute for each other.

– substitutecooking.com

I used a food processor rather than a bowl and mixer and it worked well.
If you feel that your cake could do with a little more time than the recommended 40 minutes, keep it in the oven a handful of minutes more, but be mindful of your raspberries as they can char.
The Fast 800 Chocolate Kidney Bean Cake is so simple to bake that it makes for an ideal ‘baking with kids recipe’ – that’s what I do anyway! And according to thefast800.com ‘You can also use this mixture to make cupcakes.’ They recommend you use a 12-hole tray, lined with paper cases and reduce the baking time to 15-20 minutes. So you know what me and my little bakers will be up to next week!