My little girl is really into baking at the moment, but I really want to stick to my diet and reach my goals without delay. So I was wondering about a flourless cake or one with a black bean foundation?
Are they delicious? Do they stay with the BSD guidelines? I don’t want to give up this time with my daughter so advice and recipes welcome!

Bean based cakes are great, but even these need to be approached with caution on the BSD. If you think you can limit your intake, then give it a go. I can attest that they freeze pretty well, so you could portion it off and freeze, so you can remove just one piece at a time to enjoy. Of course, you would need to calculate the total cals and carbs for the whole cake and then divide by the number of pieces you cut the cake into.
The recipe I have used is as follows:
Ingredients (To make the Chocolate And Kidney Bean Cake)
100g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
420g can beans, drained – I use Berlotti 272g drained product
4 large eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
125g butter, softened
4g Sweetener & 30g Honey
32g Raw Cacao Powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
10g Inulin
1/4 tsp salt
Ingredients for ganache topping
400g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
4g Cinnamon or ground cardamom (optional)
30g Honey
200ml cream or 150g Cream Cheese
Method
Pre-heat oven to 180ºC (fan-assisted 160ºC). – Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin. Set aside.
Place the dark chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (make sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water). Stir occasionally with a metal spoon until the chocolate is melted. Set aside until the chocolate cools, but does not set.
In a food processor, puree the beans, one egg, vanilla and the cooled, melted dark chocolate until smooth. Set aside.
Beat butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until pale and fluffy. Add the remaining eggs, one at a time, beating well after each egg. In between, add some of the cocoa powder or bean puree to dry out the mix a little and prevent curdling. Add rest of bean mixture and beat until well combined.
Sift together cocoa, baking powder, bicarb soda and salt and add to wet ingredients and mix well.
Pour cake mixture into prepared cake tin and bake for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. The cake will rise as it cooks, but as it cools it will fall back to become a “flat” cake.
Allow cake to completely cool in the tin.
To make the chocolate ganache, place the dark chocolate into a mixing bowl, set aside.
Bring the cream to the boil and then add to the dark chocolate. Mix well until the chocolate melts and the ganache becomes silky smooth. Set aside to cool completely. Once cooled, beat using electric beaters until fluffy and smooth.
If using cream cheese topping, mix it with the honey and cinnamon and spread on cooled cake.
Carefully cut the cake in half. Spread half the ganache onto the bottom half of the cake and spread to the edges. Place the top half back on top and then smooth the remaining ganache over the top of the cake. Enjoy! Ages since I made it last, but checking back it came out at 155 cals and 8.5 carbs per portion and if memory serves, I think I cut the cake into 16 pieces, so still quite high on both counts even for a small piece.

Hope that helps ……