Gluten-Free Khaman Dhokla-style Savory Chickpea Cake
100% Chickpea Flour
This cake is so additive that it is hard to believe it is entirely made of chickpea flour!
Often I want to nosh on a soft, fluffy cake. Unfortunately my current low carb, low sugar diet is not good for sweet, wheat flour-based cakes. I was suggested this recipe by my health-conscious friends in Pittsburg. I have made a few modifications that I will detail below. It is very important that sufficient acid is added to the cake, otherwise it will not rise properly.
Ingredients:
For the cake:
125 grams besan (chickpea flour, can buy at Indian store)
~1 tablespoon buckwheat flour (original recipe asks for semolina, would be good too)
~ 1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2-3/4 teaspoon kosher salt (adjust this down if using more savory add-ins)
~1 tablespoon lime or lemon juice
1 tablespoon oil
~1.5 inches ginger, pounded in mortar and pestle or grated. (I like little pieces of ginger in the cake so doesn’t need to be too fine)
2 fermented chilis, also pound with mortar and pestle (Mommy’s special :))
1/2 cup water (may add more)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
~10 olives cut in half, plus olive juice
Instructions:
Start steamer going.
Combine water, ginger paste, ground fermented chilis, salt, sugar, turmeric, oil, citrus juice. I also added around a tablespoon of olive juice, which had more acidic component. Other spices could also be added at this point
Stir/whisk in chickpea and buckwheat flour until no longer lumpy. Then add water until the batter coats the back of a spoon but does not form “ribbons” when dropped.
Grease a pan. I used my small rice cooker inner pot, which had a nice nonstick surface as well.
Make sure water is boiling in steamer before starting this step.
Add in baking soda then add some more olive juice on top of the baking soda. Stir again, the batter should start to foam upward. Quickly move the batter into the greased pan.
Add olives or other add-ins at this point.
Steam for around 20 minutes. A stick should come out clean.
Note that there is an accompanying sauce/glaze to go with this recipe. I made it last time, it was very good so would recommend following the original recipe while the cake is steaming. Note that without the sauce the cake dries out pretty quickly, while the sauce will keep it moist.
SHC Follow-up Notes: I made this cake and it was such a hit with me and Daddy. So addictive that we polished off more than half a cake in one sitting! A few observations: 1) My cake was a bit salty so next time I will stick to 1/2 tsp Diamond kosher salt when adding the pickled vegetables. 2) My cake rose very high and stayed moist. The inside seems almost reddish in color. I did add 1/2 tsp of apple cider vinegar in addition to the lemon juice. I also used jarred marinated artichoke hearts and its oil and vinegary marinade where the recipe called for olives and juice. The artichoke pieces turned green! Some chemical reaction took place in there but it was very, very good.
