garbanzo cake

And finally, dinner ended with a strange and extremely easy to make dessert that happens to be gluten free. Torta del garbanzo is a very moist cake made out of chickpeas and flavoured by orange and cinnamon (although I used cinnamon’s stronger cousin cassia).

I got this recipe from Jane Milton’s ‘Mexican’ book as well, although I halved the ingredients to make a smaller cake and unfortunately forgot to halve the orange juice too. Even though the mixture was like water when I poured it into the baking tin, it still turned into an excellent cake with a crunchy top and a syrupy base flavoured with orange. I am giving you my amended version below.

Torta del Garbanzo
Based on a recipe from Jane Milton’s ‘Mexican’.

Serves 6.

Ingredients:
300g can chickpeas/garbanzo
2 eggs, beaten
½ cup sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder (bicarb soda)
1 heaped teaspoon cassia (or cinnamon)
Zest and juice of 1 orange

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180’C (or 350’F). Grease and line a baking loaf pan.
2. Drain the chickpeas thoroughly, and then rub them with your fingers to remove the papery skins. Puree in a food processor.
3. In a bowl, mix the chickpeas, sugar, eggs, baking powder, cinnamon, orange juice and rind.
4. Pour into baking loaf pan and bake for 1hr and 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
5. Remove from oven and let stand for 10 minutes before cooling on a wire rack. Allow cake to cool completely before serving.
6. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and or serve in thin slices with fresh pineapple and yoghurt.