Easy-Peasy Gluten Free Black Bean Chocolate Cake

This past weekend we celebrated several birthdays!  Yay for birthdays!

Saturday we celebrated my friend's oldest daughter's sweet 16! We had a blast at her home grilling hot dogs, making s'mores around the fire, and eating too much cake!  Us moms got a chance to sit down and chit chat, which was sorely needed. The men did manly things like catering to their inner pyro.

Sunday we had a family gathering at our house to celebrate both Little Miss Helpful's birthday and my mother's birthday.

It was nice having our family here to celebrate and enjoy the day with us.  And LMH really loved her presents, which were all artsy supplies!  No.. she really did love them!  She is easy peasy to keep happy. :)

I wanted to make a cake that was a bit healthier, and I have several friends in the Gluten Free circle rave about Black Bean Chocolate Cake.  So I decided to give it a go! 

A quick Google search landed me on A Hippie With a Minivan and her recipe for Black Bean Chocolate Cake. 

At first I was a bit skeptical, because I have never made a cake without flour before.  But this cake turned out so moist and definitely chocolatety!   Plus it filled the house with the most amazing chocolate cake aroma ever!  

When it was done I kept it simple with just a small dusting of powdered sugar, topped with some frozen strawberries and blueberries. (Fresh berries would of been better, but I only had frozen on hand).  No overly sugary frosting needed for this cake!   

When my mom tried it, she loved it and even said it was better than normal chocolate cake.

I tweaked the recipe a bit.   I used regular granulated sugar, because that is all I had on hand.  I want to play around with the recipe to try to make this with raw honey instead of sugar.

And I mixed everything together in the blender.   This made it really quick and easy and cut down on the amount of dirty dishes!   I ended up making 3 cakes in a very short amount of time.  :)

Little Miss Sunshine and Little Miss Helpful love making the cake for Grandma!

Here is the recipe with the steps I took.

Easy-Peasy Black Bean Chocolate Cake

1- 15 oz can black beans drained and rinsed or 2 cups cooked black beans, drained and rinsed*

5 large eggs

1 Tblspn vanilla extract

3/4 cup granulated sugar

6 Tblspns butter - softened at room temperature

1/2 tspn salt

6 Tblspns Cocoa Powder (I used Nestle Toll House Cocoa)

1/2 tspn baking soda

1 tspn baking powder 

1 Tblspn water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.   

Grease a 9" circular pan or a 8x8" square pan.  Grease with shortening or coconut oil, and dust lightly with cocoa powder.

 In a blender - Add black beans, 3 eggs, vanilla extract, sugar, butter, and salt.  Blend on the highest setting (liquify setting on my blender)  until the beans are liquified and all items are mixed well. This took about 45 seconds to a minute in my blender.

To the blender - Add remaining two eggs, Cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and water.   Blend on the "blend" or "mix" setting until all ingredients are incorporated and mixed well.

Pour cake batter from the blender into the cake pan.  Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes.   Start doing the toothpick poke test for doneness at 35 minutes and adjust the cook time accordingly.  Cake is done when the top is rounded and you can insert a toothpick into the center and it comes out clean and dry.

Remove from the oven and let cool on a cooling rack.  Remove from cake pan, cut into serving size slices.  Put a slice on a dessert plate, dust lightly with powdered sugar.  

Top with your favorite berries and fresh home made whipped cream. 

Serve and enjoy with love and gratitude for another blessed day with your family and friends.

* 1 cup dried black beans equals about 2 cups after soaking and cooking.

This recipe originally found at A Hippie with a Minivan. and tweaked a bit by me. Please stop by her blog and tell her hello!

The Garden 062210

Pics of updates for the garden.

If watching the progression of us digging in dirt sounds boring to you, there's some links for more great reading to the right.

I wouldn't be offended at all if you clicked one.

No, really I wouldn't.

Monday morning the girls and I spent several hours pulling weeds from the garden space.


This is what it looked like Monday. That's my daughter in the left space earning her camp spending money. Please ignore the naked baby doll lying in the grass.

No I didn't make my daughter clear the one on the right all by herself. I have been known to be a little mean to my kids. But not that mean.

My other two got involved and "helped" too. Helping as in digging in the section already stripped and making mud pies.


This is my little mud pie beauty.

I wasn't going to allow all those little muddy hands and feet inside on my floor. Not that it really would of made a difference if muddy feel walked on my floor, I haven't mopped in two weeks. But it's the principle you know.

So I got smart for once and brought out a basin for them to wash up in first before walking inside.


Rub a dub dub, three girlies in a tub.

Last night we finished double digging that section and added peat moss and compost. I still need to add vermiculite, but could not find any yesterday.


Hubby is handling the shovel. I did do half of this, but I think hubby was afraid I would hurt myself with the shovel, so he took over. He's double digging and Jordan is earning her camp spending money breaking up the clods and picking out roots.


Adding in the peat moss and compost.


Two littles keeping themselves cool with water play and creating a toybox explosion in our yard.


Double digging the end of the first section.



Second section finished as of Tuesday evening, and partially sectioned off. Jordan still earning camp spending money. She looks so thrilled to be out here. :)

Blessings