Chocolate Quinoa Cake

Isn't that the craziest thing you've ever heard? I was really skeptical when I saw the recipe, but I am here to tell you that chocolate quinoa cake is real and it is delicious. And you can't even tell that it's made with quinoa instead of all-purpose flour. I promise. Granted, it's been a while since I've had regular chocolate cake, so I'm not sure how it would hold up in a side by side taste test, but I thought it was really good.

You can find the recipe here.

My notes: I baked the cake in a 9x13 pan. It sounded like it was going to be sort of fragile, and I didn't want to have to worry about layers crumbling. It ended up being sturdier than I thought, but I am still glad I went with a sheet cake. (I baked it for the recommended round-pan-30 minutes and it was just right.) I used regular whole milk, and regular butter in place of the Earth Balance. I knew the frosting was going to be plenty sweet, so I cut the sugar in half, and only used half a cup of regular granulated sugar (in the whole cake!). Make sure you have cooked the quinoa ahead of time, as it is supposed to be cool when you add it to the batter, and you're not going to want to wait for it.

And now some notes on the frosting: the frosting! Oh man, I wanted to eat the entire bowl with a spoon. It was so, so good. I used one full can of coconut cream (Sprouts brand, with no added sweeteners) and 10 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips. I refrigerated the coconut cream for a few hours, but not overnight since I didn't think there would be anything to separate out like there would have been if I had used the coconut milk called for in the recipe. Once I melted them together on the stove, I refrigerated the mixture until it was firm, making sure to take a swipe with my finger (or a spoon) every time I opened the fridge. When I was ready to frost the cake, I whipped the cream for a minute with a hand mixer. Here's the thing, it is more like a heavy whipped cream than a thick frosting, and that is just fine. But that's one reason why I am glad I made a sheet cake and not a layer cake. I think the frosting would have oozed right out of the layers. The consistency of the frosting didn't bother me because it tasted SO good. It has a very slight coconutty flavor. It is so slight that even if coconut isn't your thing, you would probably like it. I still can't believe it only has two ingredients. It couldn't be simpler. Just make sure to keep your cake in the fridge.

Have you ever made this cake before? Do you think you'd like to try it?


Thanks to my friend, Jill, for passing this recipe along to me.