I’ve been doing so much reading lately on the correct way to prepare quinoa and experimenting with recipes to help provide better quality ingredients to help improve the nutrition for my mother’s small meals. Like many others, quinoa is one of those grains that people have turned to because of its high nutritive value, and especially its good, clean source of protein.
Quinoa is also one of those acceptable grains that gluten free folks can include in their diet without a problem — but for some, there’s still a love/hate relationship with the grain, especially if it’s not prepared correctly.
People who are required to make modifications in the food they eat for health reasons may find that many times, the pleasure they previously enjoyed is now gone in the modified recipe. It’s enough to make anyone grumpy for the rest of the day — but hopefully not the rest of their life.
One of the first recipes I recently modified for my mother’s meal plan was my recipe for buttermilk pancakes. I cut back on some of the buttermilk and added some cooked quinoa. I was so pleased with how the pancakes turned out, and if I didn’t tell you that there was quinoa in them, you would have never known — they are that good.
This small success encouraged me to try my hand at a few other recipes – all of which turned out beautifully, and I will be sharing them with you all, here on the blog.
Once I had the quinoa pancake under my belt, I wanted to start working on a chocolate cake recipe. Mum loves chocolate cake and I wanted to make sure that she could still enjoy it without it causing any problems for her.
I wanted to step up my game in this recipe and gave myself the extra challenge of making it completely gluten free – not because we follow a gluten free diet, but because the recipe could help a wider audience. So many of my friends who follow gluten free diets tell me that they add things like tapioca starch, xantham or guar gums to create bulk and texture in their recipes, but to me, that’s just replacing one problem with another.
So, I read as much as I could and then came up with a basic recipe. I tried it once and it was quite good, but it still needed a few tweaks. I tried it again and it was incredible.
The cake was perfectly sweet and so fluffy as is, but the REAL question was, would it hold up to a frosting without crumbling and falling apart?
I decided to whip up a batch of my wickedly good chocolate frosting, and the result was absolute heaven. You can use this frosting or something even more rich like my quick chocolate ganache. The resulting cake was deliciously fudgy and moist, everything you would ever want in a really, really good chocolate cake.
This is how smooth and creamy my wickedly good frosting turns out and it’s just perfect for this cake…
The key parts of this recipe include using both cooked quinoa and a little bit of quinoa flour. The cooked quinoa is placed in a food processor and pureed. Cocoa powder is added in addition to the quinoa flour to add body and structure for the cake and a little vegetable oil is added for moisture.
The cake is a real show stopper on so many levels. This is a chocolate cake that you can feel safe and happy eating and never ever feel deprived again – how about that!
The BEST EVER Gluten Free, Chocolate Quinoa Cake (makes 2-9″ cakes)
2 cups cooked quinoa
1/3 cup buttermilk
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon coconut extract
½ cup vegetable oil **go as much as 2/3 of a cup if you want a really fudgy, more pudding like cake
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
¼ cup quinoa flour
1 cup cocoa powder
1 ½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
The night before you make the cake–If you are going to buy whole quinoa grains, place about ½ cup into your food processor or coffee grinder and pulverize it until it is a very smooth powder. Take this and pass it through a fine mesh sieve to ensure that any shells have been removed.
Leftover grain shells do not make for good eating…
Quinoa flour that I make from whole grains…
If you are buying quinoa flour, then you don’t have to worry about this step – simply measure out ¼ cup of quinoa flour into a small bowl and mix it with the 1/3 cup of buttermilk. Cover and place this in the refrigerator overnight and let the cultured milk treat the quinoa.
In another medium sized bowl, place 1 cup of the whole grain quinoa. Cover this with 2 or 3 cups of water and rinse it very well. Strain the quinoa with a sieve and put it back into the same bowl. Cover this with 2 or 3 cups of cold water — enough to cover all of the grain. Add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice for each cup of water and stir it in well. Cover with plastic wrap and allow this to sit on the counter top overnight. The next day before cooking the quinoa, pour the quinoa into a strainer and rinse well under running water. Prepare the quinoa according to the instructions on the back of your package, and make sure to fluff up the grains after it has cooked.
Generally, 1 cup of raw quinoa grains prepared this way will yield about 4 cups of cooked grains, so you will have extra to make other things. Just keep any extra cooked quinoa covered in the refrigerator.
Take 2 cups of the quinoa and place it in your food processor or Vitamixer. Start pureeing this, then stop and add the granulated sugar, and continue pureeing. Crack the eggs into a small cup, add the oil and both extracts then slowly pour this into the food processor as well to help the mixture along. Remove the refrigerated quinoa flour and buttermilk that you have stored in the refrigerator from the previous night. Pour this also into the food processor and let it continue pureeing until you have a very smooth paste.
In a separate bowl, sift together all of the dry ingredients and then pour the dry ingredients into the food processor until it all comes together like this…
Pour the batter into a well greased baking pan and bake at 350°F until the center tests clean, about 15-20 minutes.
It comes out really light and fluffy…
Allow the cake to cool completely before serving. If you plan to frost this cake, I highly suggest that you make the cake the day before you need it, to allow the crumb to settle. This is not something different that is done for this quinoa cake, but something that is required of all cakes before they are sliced, frosted and decorated.
Once you put the cake together with your desired frosting, it cuts beautifully and cleanly with little or no crumbs…
Read more about why quinoa is rinsed, cooked and treated with citric acid or cultured dairy products here.
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