When you see a recipe name like Death by Chocolate, you know it’s a good thing. However, Death by Pinto Beans just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
You know I’m right.
And right now, I know you’re scared.
I never know where ideas for this blog are going to come from. Last week Becky sent me a link to a Facebook video by a guy I’d never heard of. But apparently, he’s taken TikTok and every other form of social media by storm and has over a million followers. So this guy Dylan has a thing for trying out vintage recipes and videoing them as he goes. I’ve only watched a few of them. I don’t know if he’s recorded any failures.
The link she sent was for Pinto Bean Cake. That right there is enough to put holy fear into just about anybody. Dylan’s pretty scared himself and even starts quoting Psalms, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”
The video is pretty quick and rather entertaining (link below). It will take your mind off current events for all of 60 seconds. And if you are like me, it might give you courage to try baking a Pinto Bean Cake. Because when you write the ingredients down and ponder them for a moment, you’re going to need all the courage you can muster. And you’re going to wonder if there’s something missing, you know, like maybe some flour. Sugar? Salt? Believe me, I watched the video three times just to make sure I really had all the ingredients right.
So here we go. Make
sure you’ve got your big kid pants on.
After all, this isn’t like that pinto bean fudge that really has only a
token amount of pinto beans in it. Pinto
beans are the primary ingredient here.
There’s no getting away from them or their flavor (which is just fine as long as they aren't in a dessert).
Preheat oven to 375°F. Process the peanuts in a food processor until they become peanut butter, or as close as you are going to get with your food processor. Add the beans and process until smooth. Add in the remaining ingredients and buzz a couple of times to combine. Pour into a greased springform pan and bake 45 minutes.
*I think 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of peanut butter would substitute perfectly for the peanuts.
Notes. First, I did not make any adjustments for high altitude. I almost never do. Second, my food processor did not come even close to turning the peanuts into peanut butter. Previous food processors have done it with ease. I’m not sure if it’s because the current food processor is a super cheap one (likely), or because when making peanut butter in the past I always made bigger batches. So for this recipe I decided to add in the butter to the peanuts to see if I could get them a little smoother. Not sure that it helped. I used really old honey—like nearly 50 years old. Though I normally use coconut oil instead of butter, I thought I should stick with butter this time. And finally, Dylan didn’t specify what size springform pan. I’m not even sure a springform pan is necessary, but since he used one, I thought I should as well. I used an 8” pan and the batter nearly filled the pan. The cake rose quite a bit higher than the edge of the pan, about 1”. (And after about 10 minutes, it sank back down.) Also, the cake was still a bit jiggly in the middle, so I let it bake an additional 10 minutes. That wasn’t enough. When I cut into the cake, it was only baked around the edges, about 1” in. It definitely needs at least a 9” pan.
Now for the moment you’ve been waiting for:
Family reviews. (We only taste-tested the edges that were fully baked.) I tried to defend myself. “Dylan made it look so good.”
King of the Picky Eaters said something along the lines of, “You know, there are people out there who try to make Stalin look good.” He said he could only taste pinto beans. Buttercup spit it out in the sink. Aaron refused to try it. (He’s not a fan of peanut butter. Basically, it belongs on PB&Js.) Becky, the force behind this little experiment, couldn’t believe I’d eaten more than one bite. Jared and Belle weren’t around today, so they were spared.
I ate several bites. The first thing I noticed was the honey, which I didn’t really care for. I just don’t like honey in my desserts most of the time. But I didn’t think it was that bad. The texture of the baked edge was actually really nice. I think it could pass for a dessert in countries that don’t use as much sugar as we do. Some of the so-called desserts I ate while in the Soviet Union were seriously lacking in sugar. This pinto bean cake would be on par with those. And I think it may have passed for dessert in the 1950s (when the cookbook Dylan got this recipe from was published) when Americans didn’t eat quite as much sugar as we do now.
However, there’s no way I’m making this cake again. Well, not for my family. Maybe to take to a neighborhood meeting those
first few days after total collapse.
Maybe the neighbors will get the idea that we have nothing worth eating
at our house. Maybe we’ll take some
banana peel bacon as an appetizer. That
should cement our reputation well.
So because Dylan is such a screaming internet sensation, I figured I’d give another of his recipes a try. The following comes from a 1932 cookbook, published during the height of the Great Depression, when butter, eggs, and sugar sold for a pretty penny.
Preheat oven to 325°F. In a medium bowl combine dry ingredients. Stir in milk and peanut butter until well mixed. Pour batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for 70 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean.
Family reviews. The same poor schmucks who were subjected to the pinto bean cake also got to try this concoction. Basically, we all said there wasn’t anything wrong or bad about it, but absolutely nothing exciting either. We only cut one slice off and we all only took a nibble. The rest of that slice is still on the counter.
So Dylan’s videos are indeed entertaining. He’s got great comedic timing. But the food? Just no. Many of those Depression-era recipes are really depressing. And these two recipes just go to demonstrate again how critical it is to test these things out. For heaven’s sake, don’t just take my word or anybody’s word for a recipe. You’ve got to find out whether your family will like it.
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