Coconut & Banana Whey Protein Cake

This cake features an ingredient that most of you probably don’t associate with sweet things, let alone cakes. That ingredient is… chickpeas. Yup, chickpeas – aka garbanzo beans. I made this cake with an entire can of chickpeas. I had originally bought the chickpeas to make hummus but today, as I was planning this cake, I opened up the cupboard searching for inspiration and found it.

And, Zeus! am I glad I used the chickpeas! Because this cake is delicious.

Chickpeas are an amazing food. They’re one of the highest-in-protein legumes out there too, did you know? They’re not as high as peanuts of course (which boast an impressive 26% protein) but they’re up there with black beans and lentils at 9%. Like a lot of beans, chickpeas are great for baking because they lend a lot of moisture and volume to cakes and breads!

Ingredients:

1 can (cooked and unsalted) chickpeas (read note 1 below for subs)
3/4 cups liquid egg whites
1/2 cup banana whey protein
2 tablespoons coconut flour
20g mulberries
3 tablespoons flaked coconut
1 tablespoon toffee stevia drops (or your sweetener of choice)

Directions:

Blend everything together and bake at 170 C (338 F) for about 45 minutes of until, when poked with a knife, your knife comes out clean.

Macros per Slice (out of 5):

170kcals
16g protein
13g carbs (out of which 7g is fiber!!!!)
3g fat

I baked mine in a silicone bread pan but you can bake the batter in a small round cake pan too, especially if you want to end up with more cakey-looking triangular slices. I cut mine into rectangles though because I plan on dipping one of them in my coffee tomorrow morn.

Now, for the top, what I did was sprinkle the cake with MCT powder. It’s crazy because it looks like powdered sugar but tastes like coconut heaven! I’ve written about MCT powder before and I’m still head-over-heels in love with the stuff. It’s one of my favorite coffee creamers on earth AND it tastes gorgeous on top of cake. What’s not to love!?

If you don’t have MCT powder though, you can just sprinkle the cake with powdered stevia or just omit that whole part of the cake. It doesn’t really need it, it simply compliments it. Another thing you can do is add some nut butter to the cake, either inside (as a layer) or on top. Peanut butter would be absolutely delicious.

Note 1: If you want to substitute the chickpeas, you can probably get away with using butter beans. I say this because, texture and flavor wise, butter beans and probably the closest sub. Another thing you could try is using ground almonds (aka almond meal) and some apple sauce. You’ll end up with a totally different protein cake, yes, but it should be pretty tasty. I’ll give that version a shot soon so you don’t have to experiment with it if you don’t want to 🙂