Chocolate quinoa cake
Did you think it was possible to make a cake that is gluten free, dairy free and nut free and still be delicious enough to serve as a celebration dessert? If you said yes, you'd be right, because this is it! This has absolutely the best texture for a gluten free cake that I have ever made and it's all thanks to the secret ingredient - cooked quinoa.
- prep time
- 15m
- cooking time
- 45m
- servings
- 8
Ingredients
300g (2 1/4 cups) cooked quinoa*
80ml (1/3 cup) Vitasoy Soy Milky Lite**
1 large overripe banana, peeled and flesh mashed
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste (or pure extract)
4 eggs
60ml (1/4 cup) coconut oil, melted if solid
60g (3/4 cup) cocoa powder
110g (1/2 cup) brown sugar
110g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon bi-carb soda
* 3/4 cup of dry quinoa (red or white is fine) will yield about 2 1/4 cups of cooked quinoa. To cook quinoa, first rinse it in a fine mesh sieve then place into a medium saucepan that has a lid. Add 1 1/2 cups of cold tap water and bring to the boil. Once boiling, put the lid on and turn the heat down as low as it will go and cook for 15 minutes until all the water is absorbed. You will know it is cooked when you can see a little sprout tail appear on each quinoa seed and the texture is al dente when tasted. Use in the recipe from step 2. ** Any of the Vitasoy range of unflavoured soy milks, rice milks or oat milks may be substituted.
Method
- Heat the oven to 180C. Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin.
- Place the cooked quinoa, soy milk, banana and vanilla into the bowl of a food processor and blitz for 30 seconds until a paste forms. Add the eggs and coconut oil and blitz for 1 minute until it is a smooth batter consistency.
- In a separate large bowl add the cocoa powder, both sugars, baking powder and bi-carb soda. Whisk to combine well and make sure there are no lumps of bi-carb soda. Add the wet mix from the food processor and fold together gently until combined.
- Pour into the cake tin and smooth the top. Bake for 45 minutes until the centre is firm to touch and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out with a few moist crumbs. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes then invert onto a rack to cool completely before serving.
