To me, Food Alchemy is what happens when you take an ingredient that's usually meant to be used one way and then turn it into something that is by turns utterly extraordinary and totally unexpected. Such was the case with this chocolate cake. The recipe above came from last months Organic Spa magazine and the lovely young woman in the picture above is my sons girlfriend Angie. About three nights ago she asked me if we could try this recipe and I was completely intrigued. Quinoa in a cake... How bad could it be? If it worked I thought, there's one more gluten free cake recipe to add to the arsenal and I'm happy to say that it was absolutely delicious.
We had a wonderful time making it and really the hardest part was cooling the quinoa down fast enough to make the batter. If you make it beforehand and cool it you won't have that problem! Indulge yourself if you have a copper bowl and whip the cream with a handwhisk. I added some rose extract, a bit of vanilla extract and date sugar to the whipping cream. It turned into a luscious, dense custard, just lightly flavored and perfect with the chocolate!
We sat in front of the oven for the 50 minute baking time just laughing, watching and smelling the luxurious chocolate aromatherapy that was taking over the kitchen. When the baking time was over we dusted the cake with cinnamon and ate it warm with the whipped cream. It was amazingly rich, dense and chocolate~ty. It was surprisingly not chewy and when you look at the list of ingredients, actually quite healthy! Have fun with this one. I'm going to make it again for my next Herb Society meeting, but I'm going to slice it in half, fill it with bittersweet ganache that I've flavored with raspberry jam and then I'm going to cover it with clouds of whipped cream pineapple basil, candied violets and fruit. Let me know what you invent and my thanks to you Angie for all of the fun and inspiration! I probably would never have tried it if not for you!
