May I present another recipe with a surprise ingredient? Anna Jones’ Lemon Cannellini Bean Cake is a gluten free recipe that cleverly uses beans to make this a protein-packed, dense-yet-light and not-too-sweet cake. In her recipe, she asks that you use a vanilla pod for flavouring. I have switched it up and replaced lemon for vanilla in the cake to freshen up the taste. I chose to serve this with a dollop of vanilla cream to balance the tang of the lemon. If you are looking for a gluten free cake, I can highly recommend this. I have made it several times and to my chagrin, there’s never been a slice left over for breakfast the next day! Have fun with it!
Ingredients
-
- 2 x 400g tins of cannellini beans
- 150ml set honey
- the zest and juice from one lemon
- 4 free-range or organic eggs
- 100g ground almonds
- 2 teaspoons gluten-free baking powder
- 100g melted coconut oil
- a pinch of sea salt
Vanilla Cream
- 400ml whipping cream
- 2 tsp vanilla bean paste
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 180C. Get all your ingredients together and grease and line a 20 cm spring-form cake tin. Drain and rinse the cannellini beans.
- In a food processor, blitz the drained/rinsed beans, honey, lemon juice, and grated rind until smooth, then add the eggs one by one, pulsing as you go.
- Pour batter into a mixing bowl and gently fold in the ground almonds, baking powder, melted coconut oil and a pinch of salt. The batter may be a little looser than you’d expect from a cake batter, but don’t worry.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 30-40 minutes. The cake is ready when it is lightly golden brown on top, firm to the touch and a skewer comes out clean.
- Once the cake has had its time, take it out of the oven, leave it to cool for 10 minutes in the tin, then release the spring-form and cool completely on a rack.
- When the cake is cooled and you are ready to serve it, whip the cream and vanilla bean paste until soft peaks form and add a dollop with each slice.