Vegan Brownie Cake Surprise
This is an incredibly healthy but also surprisingly delicious vegan cake. Among other things, it contains black beans, which is why I named the cake ‘surprise’. Diary-free, sugar-free and gluten-free, just pure, natural and healthy ingredients.
Rather than telling your party guests what’s in this cake, just serve it, get them to savour it and then blow their minds by reeling off the list of ingredients. You could even run a bet to see who would guess the ingredients, no-one would win, especially the black beans!
This recipe was adapted from Mirciny Moliviatis’ ‘vegan brownie recipe’, a well-known Guatemalan chef whose recent book, ‘Living the Recipe’ offers original and exiting modern twists on traditional Guatemalan dishes. My sister bought me the book back from Guatemala. Every time I flick through the pages I’m taken back to the Guatemalan Highlands, listening to the ‘pat pat pat’ of women making tortillas and watching black beans bubbling away on the stovetop.
Ingredients
1 can black beans, washed and drains
20 dates soaked in water for 30 minutes (save the water)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1/2 cup cocoa
1 cup cooked and mashed plantain (you can use banana if you can’t source plantain)
Topping
1 avocado
3/4 cup dates, also soaked in water
2-3 tablespoons of cocoa
as much water from the dates as you need
1. in a blender combine the beans, dates, plantain, peanut butter and vanilla extract, adding a little water from the dates if needed to blend. Add the cocoa, canela and combine.
2. place in a pre-heated oven in a round, greased tin and cook for 20-25 minutes, don’t over cook, you want a the cake to be quiet moist inside like a brownie
3. Make the topping by adding all the ingredients in a blender and adding as much water as you need from the soaked dates to combine, spread on the top and you’re ready to go!
