This cake uses some strange ingredients that you might not usually associate with cakes, but once you taste it you’ll see why! The chickpea keeps the cake moist without becoming dense and the blackberries give it a pleasant tang that stops it being too sweet or bland.

If you are vegan, the whole cake can be made vegan by using egg substitute and vegan protein (although be aware – vegan protein absorbs more liquid, so you may need to add a splash of water or almond milk). As it is, this cake packs in a huge amount of protein and important fibre so definitely constitutes a very healthy treat.

You can make this into one large loaf using a loaf tin or alternatively you can make 2 small round cakes, which you can stack together like a Victoria sponge cake. I use cashew cream and homemade blackberry jam for the filling.

I would 100% recommend you pick your own blackberries for this – not only is that free but also they taste amaaaaazing and you get the gratification of working for your dessert. Now is the season and they’re everywhere so have a forage!

Macros (cake only): 270cals, F: 12g, C: 24.2, P: 15.5

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 100ml honey (may need less with sweeter protein powder)
• 50ml vegetable oil
• 100ml almond milk
• 1 can chickpeas
• 100g vanilla/unflavoured protein
• 100g self-raising wholemeal/white flour
• 100g ground almonds
• 1tsp baking powder
• 150g – 200g blackberries

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven to 180C (160 fan)
• Blend together all the liquid ingredients with the chickpeas until smooth (a couple of minutes)
• In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients to blend
• Fold in the dry ingredients into the chickpea liquid mix
• Add half the blackberries and mix (it should be easy
• Pour into a deep greased tin, preferably with a removable base (or two shallow round tins for filled sponge) and place the remaining blackberries on top
• Cook for 35-40 minutes if in shallow tins or 45 minutes if in loaf tin. Check with cake prodder to see if it comes out clean. This may take an hour to cook in a deep tin
• Remove from the oven; keep in tin and let cool on wire rack. Remove from tin when cooler and leave to cool further on the rack. Do not cut until at room temperature.

If you sandwich the cakes you should level off the lower one using a bread knife

Spread on the jam and cashew cream thickly, leaving some space at the edges

Sandwich and enjoy!