Flourless Chocolate Cake

I was in the mood again for a chocolate dessert, but I didn't have enough flour to make a cake or brownies. After surfing on the internet for a while, I came across the following recipe, for which I had all of the necessary ingredients. Perfect! An hour later I was sitting down with a slice of warm flourless chocolate cake on my plate.

The cake tasted rich and chocolatey, and was great by itself, especially when it was still warm. The texture was creamy, almost the consistency of a New York style cheesecake. Yet unlike many flourless chocolate cakes, this one didn't have a stick or two of butter or a cup of heavy cream. And you wouldn't believe what the magic ingredient was. Chickpeas. An entire can of chickpeas goes into this cake, but you would never be able to tell when eating it. Trust me.

Here is the original recipe. I found two other recipes that are similar to this one except that they call for 1 1/2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips and 3/4 cup granulated white sugar instead of the 7 ounces of bittersweet chocolate and the turbinado and brown sugars. The next time I'm in the mood for chocolate and am out of flour, I think I'll try that version so that I can compare. And if I'm planning ahead, a garnish of fresh raspberries and some homemade whipped cream would make it just amazing.

Flourless Chocolate Cake
makes a 9-inch round cake

Ingredients:

• 7 ounces, by weight, of semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate. I used Trader Joe's Pound Plus 72% dark chocolate, imported from Belgium, but any brand of semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate without milkfat would be fine.
• 4 large eggs
• 1 15-ounce can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed. Look for a can that contains only chickpeas, salt, and water.
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract. Use Trader Joe's alcohol-free vanilla extract or another vanilla extract that does not have corn syrup and is preferably alcohol-free, since the alcohol could be derived from corn.
• 1 cup raw cane (i.e. turbinado) sugar
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
  
• 1/8 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
  

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Thoroughly grease a 9-inch baking pan and dust with flour.

Break or chop the chocolate into small pieces and melt in a small sauce pan over low heat, stirring frequently so that the chocolate does not burn. When the chocolate is melted, remove the pan from the heat.

Put the eggs and vanilla extract in a blender. Drain and rinse the chickpeas and then pour them into the blender. Blend the ingredients until the chickpeas are pulverized and the mixture is smooth. In a small bowl mix together the turbinado sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, and cream of tartar. Pour the dry ingredients into the blender and blend again until fully combined. Then pour the melted chocolate into the blender and blend again to combine.

Pour the batter into the baking pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Then invert the cake pan onto a plate to get the cake out of the pan, and then carefully flip the cake back onto whatever dish you want to use to serve the cake on.