Unusual Chickpea and Lime Cake

This is an extremely unusual cake recipe, which is slightly gritty in texture. It has no flour or nuts, but is based on chickpeas (garbanzo beans). I think it is best served as a dessert, with a small dollop of crème fraîche or soured cream on the side. If you use fructose instead of sugar, it makes an excellent occasional treat if you are watching your glycaemic/glycemic load! In fact, this recipe grew from a discussion on a web site devoted to that type of diet. I am posting it here for its novelty value, not because I think it's one of the world's greatest cakes! :-)

• Ready In: 1 hr
• Serves: 8-12

Ingredients

• 8  ounces canned chick-peas, drained weight (240g, or 1 can)
• 3  eggs
• 1⁄3 cup sugar or 1⁄3 cup fructose
• 2  limes, juice and zest of
• 1  tablespoon poppy seed

Directions

1. Grease and line the base of a 9" cake tin.
2. Preheat the oven to 350F (175C).
3. Put the chickpeas in the food processor and blitz until smooth.
4. Mix in the eggs, sugar/fructose, the poppy seeds, the lime zest and half of the lime juice (keeping the remaining half of the lime juice for later).
5. Pour the mixture into the cake tin, and bake for about 45 minutes, until firm and brown. If it looks as though it's getting too dark, cover with tin foil.
6. Allow the cake to cool in its tin for a quarter of an hour, then pour over the remaining lime juice.
7. Allow to finish cooling, then remove from the tin.
8. Serve in small slices.