Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Choc Chip Banana & Quinoa Cake

Choc Chip, Banana & Quinoa Cake
I've waxed lyrical previously about how much I love Quinoa.  It seems that quinoa's everywhere lately though - open any food magazine, look at a cafe menu and it seems that that quinoa is the new black.  For good reason too, it's good stuff!

This recipe evolved in some recent baking experiments.  I've been making a conscious effort of late to replace wheat with spelt in my baking but on this particular day I'd run out of spelt, so I decided to try this one out with quinoa instead.

The result is, if I do say so myself, super delicious!  It is beautiful served warm - the banana and the chocolate just ooze and are perfect for this cooler weather.  It has been featuring regularly in my boys lunchboxes and they love it, so it gets big kids thumbs up as well.




Choc Chip, Banana & Quinoa Cake


Ingredients:-

*  110g quinoa (see tips)
*  130g rapadura sugar
*  125g rolled oats
*  1/2 tsp bi-carb
*  2 ripe bananas
*  1 egg
*  60g butter
*  1 tsp vanilla essence
*  150g choc chips (see tips)

Method:-

Pre-heat your oven to 170C fan-forced.

1.  Mill your quinoa for 1 minute on speed 9.  (If you put a piece of paper towel under the MC before you start milling you find that you stop getting bits of quinoa fly out while you're grinding.)

2.  Add the rapadura, rolled oats and bi-carb to the TM bowl.  Mix together for 5 seconds on speed 4.  Set the dry ingredients aside.

3.  Place banana, egg, butter and vanilla essence to the TM bowl.  Mix together for 20 seconds on speed 5.

4.  Add dry ingredients to the bowl and mix for 5 seconds on speed 4.  Scrape down, add choc chips and mix on reverse, for 3 seconds on speed 4.

Pour into a lined 27cm x 16cm slice tray and bake for 25 minutes.

Tips:-

Quinoa needs to be rinsed before you use it.  I soak my quinoa overnight with a bit of whey in the water to make them easier to digest and then dehydrate it in my oven and store it dried.  If you can't be bothered with all that (or just want to make the slice straight away), then you can rinse the quinoa, dry it well and grind it into a paste, rather than a flour.  If you do this you need to reduce the butter content by 10-20g to allow for the additional moisture in the mixture.

I am fortunate enough that I can get organic choc chips through my dry goods co-op (in Brisbane you can order them from Santos Trading).  I also love using the Lindt Couverture chocolate buttons which are available at good delis.  In Brisbane, one of the easiest places to get them is at the Zone Fresh gourmet deli at Windsor.

1 comment:

  1. My daughter loves this dish. I have a question for you. We can use the vacuum sealer to preserve longer?

    ReplyDelete