Andre Herrera

Ok I found it!!
Ready?

Black Bean Cake

3 cups (2cans) cooked black beans (drained and rinsed)
8 large eggs
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
8 tbsp (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup coconut sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp water

Preheat oven to 380 degrees.

Grease a 13x9 inch cake pan and dust with cocoa powder

Place the beans, eggs, vanilla, sugar and salt into blender or food processor (I used my vita mix). Process or blend on high until beans are completely liquified.

Add the remaining ingredients and process on high for 2 minutes until everything is well incorporated.

Pour into your prepared pan. Bake 30-40 min until the top is slightly rounded and firm to the touch. Do not overbake. My center actually still looked a tiny but underdone but remember that it will keep cooking a little even after you take it out.


Gluten free white bean coconut cake

3 cups (two cans) cooked white beans (drained and rinsed)
8 large eggs
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
8 tbsp butter, softened
1 cup coconut sugar
1/3 cup coconut flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a 13x9 inch cake pan with coconut oil

Place the beans, eggs, vanilla, sugar and salt into blender or food processor (I used my food processor).

Process or blend on high until beans are completely liquified.

Add the remaining ingredients and process on high for 2 minutes until everything is well incorporated.

Pour into your prepared pan.  

Add cinnamon and raisins.

Bake 30-40 min until the top is slightly rounded and firm to the touch. Do not overbake.

My center actually still looked a tiny bit underdone but remember that it will keep cooking a little even after you take it out.

Enjoy!! 😃

I have a friend who makes this delicious black bean chocolate cake for breakfast.. Mind you he uses the canned black beans, so I’m not sure if this is something that can be donde with homegrown beans.. I don’s see why not.. I gotta ask him for the recipe! I’ll post it here

Ryan Kremer wrote:@Andre Herrera - last year, I planted some acorns in an air-prune bed with wire mesh covering it to protect from rodents (Edible Acres Youtube channel has some great videos on this). This year, I've planted out some of those seedlings, some additional seedlings I bought for variety of species, and field-planted acorns. With the field-planted acorns, I buried about half dozen at each location hoping that if mice/voles/etc find some of them, I'll still have some survive. Buried them about the depth of the acorn in the fall, with a bit of mulch to cover. I'm not sure yet how this method will turn out but I'm hopeful that sewing in quantity will be a good strategy.

Cool! Thank you for sharing this info with me. I hope you get lots of sprouts!

Ryan Kremer wrote:That acorn bread recipe looks great. I just planted a ton of oak trees and will be waiting awhile until I have my own acorn crop to use but this thread is a great reminder of why I'm planting certain plants.

Did you buy the trees or did you start them from seed? I’m looking to plant several varieties of Oak in my land as well, and wonder what the best way to do it is..

Denise Cares wrote:

Andre Herrera wrote:Any good sources to help identify different acorns? I’m a newbie at owning land and I know there’s plenty of acorn varieties just don’t know which type they are.

Maybe some of these would help: https://dof.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/Acorn-Identification.pdf
https://extension.tennessee.edu/publications/documents/PB1731.pdf
https://www.realtree.com/food-plots-and-land-management/galleries/oak-tree-id-guide-the-different-acorn-producing-tree
https://www.gardeningchores.com/types-of-oak-trees/

Thanks so much for sharing these!!
I have saved them so I can study them.

Jenny Wright wrote:

Andre Herrera wrote:Hi! Are you in Virginia by any chance? I’d be happy to give you some ☺️  If you’re not in Virginia, I could try and find a way to send some to you.

No, we are on the opposite coast, but thank you for the generous offer! (Virginia is such a lovely beautiful area- we drove through there a few times when we lived in North Carolina.)

Everyone has been so encouraging so I am going to try and start my own yeast. I'll update my post on here in a few weeks with how it goes!

It is so rewarding, you wont regret it!
Let me share with you the best sourdough pancake recipe ever, so you wont have to ever throw away any starter (It’s a big batch because we’re a big family, but you can divide by 2 if you want half the amount):
- 4 cups of sourdough starter “discard”
- 4 eggs
- 3 tbsps of honey
- 1tsp of salt
- I add vanilla to taste, but I guess it’s about less than a tbsp.
- 1/4 cup of melted butter
- 1/4 cup of melted coconut oil (you can probably substitute for any preferred fat.. or you could do the full 1/2 a cup of either)
** Mix all of those ingredients real well in a large bowl, now the trick is you the mixture in half and cook one half at a time so that it doesn’t  have time to flatten out while you cook it because the next ingredient is what does the magic and you will see the chemistry at work.
Once you have half the batter in a separate bowl you will add
- 1 tspn of baking soda mix it well really fast and start cooking them right away in a well preheated skillet (I make mine in my cast iron skillet) and they come out perfect.
Once you’re done with one half you can add the baking soda to the other half and do the same.. You can also save half of the batter in the fridge before you add the baking soda and it will last a good day or two.
Feel free to add whatever topping, my kids always ask for me to add choc chips and they come out so good! 😋 Enjoy!

Max Benson wrote:I get mine from the Breadbecker's Co-op. While the co-op only does deliveries 3 times a year, the prices are good and there are a fair number of options ranging from grains to beans to equipment.

https://www.breadbeckers.com/blog/co-ops/

Thank you so much! I checked out and it seems like a great co-op with very affordable prices. Thanks for sharing

I use the all purpose organic King Arthur flour for my sourdough bread baking and so far I have no complaints! I also make the best chocolate chip pancakes I’ve ever made with my sourdough “discard” created with this same flour.

I think this is a wonderful question.. I would also like to know about this even though I think that if we could find it locally sources it would be perfection.. I’m considering planting some, but yet again that requires good quality seeds/berries, so we’ve gone full circle. Following this post for potential answers.

So many great ideas in this thread! The eikorn flour has always called my attention, but the one time I bought it I found it quite pricey. Maybe worth it to grow our own? Anyone have experience growing it?