The Black and White Cake That Came Out Brown

Funny story this.

I invested in a square cake tin the other day and it's given me lots of random ideas about my cake baking. One of them was to create a black and white cake, like a chessboard, basically. Don't ask me why.

Well, in my defence, it was going to be brown and white, so I got halfway there, as you can see.

But what went wrong with the rest?

First, I must explain what I had in mind. You see, I'm not yet smart enough to actually bake one whole cake that divides neatly into separate colours, let alone a whole chessboard-style look. No, no. I merely thought I'd bake two separate cakes - a chocolate one, and a white chocolate one. Then, I would cut them up into squares and rearrange into a beautiful chessboard.

Easy right?

Well, you should also be aware that I wanted to make a healthy cake, so was using a butter and flour free recipe that uses chickpeas. Strange? Yes. Tasty? Yes!

But for some reason, this did not work for the white chocolate cake at all. Maybe it was the brand of white chocolate I bought. Maybe I wasn't supposed to let it melt smoothly and let it clump up accidentally in the pan like it did with the normal chocolate. Maybe chickpeas and white chocolate just don't mix.

I was far too disappointed to take a photo of the sorry white chocolate cake mess (and gagging a little from the weird taste of it). So instead of a beautiful chessboard cake, I was left with just er, a brown cake. Healthy though! You can easily make this recipe completely gluten-free if you use gluten-free baking powder too :-)

Chocolate Chickpea Cake (butter and flour free)

For an 8" square tin (12 squares):

• 200g melted chocolate
• 300g chickpeas
• 3 eggs
• 9 tbsp sugar
• Half tsp baking powder (gluten-free if needed)

1) Mash or blend the chickpeas as much as possible.

2) Beat in the eggs til smooth.

3) Mix in the sugar and baking powder.

4) Pour in the melted chocolate and mix well.

5) Transfer to a 8-inch cake tin and bake at 175 degrees C for about 40 minutes.

Other healthy baking recipes you might enjoy.