quinoa flour power! or the little pink cake that could

being a really active, health conscious person, i tend to try not to eat massive amounts of complex carbohydrates in the form of breads and grains...opting instead to get a lot of my carbs from fruits and veggies for a good amount of my meals.  these tend to be much easier for your body to break down, and also, having been unprocessed, contain a high amount of nutrients undisturbed from the refining process.  as i'm sure you've noticed, i definitely still eat grains, often in the form of adorable little dessert-meals, but i generally try to keep my grain intake to one serving a day...and usually try to aim to eat it about an hour after exercising for best absorption of nutrition and energy while still allowing my body some time to burn off stored fat immediately after a good workout.  for the past few weeks i've been trying out different flour alternatives with higher nutritional values than wheat...because while wheat is tasty, there are definitely much more nutritious (and often really delicious) alternatives that can open doors to a lot of really interesting recipe and flavor options as well.  fun fun!  what's cool about a lot of these other types of flours is that they often end up being gluten free, which means that recipes incorporating them are generally celiac and wheat allergy friendly.  thankfully, i don't harbor either of those dietary issues (as far as i know *knock on wood*), but i do really like to keep my palate diverse and my nutrition high while enjoying my food.  for a while now, i've been intensely interested in trying to incorporate quinoa flour into my grain based foods, because of it's incredible nutrition content (unlike most plant based ingredients, quinoa contains all 9 essential amino acids to make it a complete protein on its own...which is awesome in and of itself, but it's also super high in fiber, rich in antioxidants, lower in carbs than wheat, and contains healthy fats) and also because i just love the taste of quinoa.  however, my past several attempts at using the flour were all pretty tragic.  my baked goods kept coming out tasting bitter and grassy.  the yummy, nutty flavor that i came to know and love quinoa for was totally missing and my mouth was sad and angry each time i ate my treats.  so many poor wasted cakes.  it was a dark, dark time.  until one fateful night...
i'd been trying to come up with some way around the predicament.  should i wash and toast the grain?  somehow cook it and dry it again before grinding it?  all over the internet i was finding articles and comments by people with similar problems with quinoa flour making their baked goods taste wonky, but it wasn't until i found this article that i was presented with a really basic, simple, and definitive solution: all you have to do is heat treat it.  hurray!  it turns out that quinoa is naturally coated with these really bitter tasting stuffs called saponins that act as a barrier against the sun and as a natural defense against insects.  the grain itself tastes amazing, but the saponins coating it taste awful.  this is the reason why you often need to soak and rinse quinoa repeatedly before cooking it to help with the dissolving of this bitter, nasty business to get down to the delicious, nubby grain.  when using ground quinoa as a flour, the saponins can be broken down really easily in a conventional oven with very little work involved.  all you need to do is preheat your oven to 215-250, grind your quinoa (i've just been making small batches using raw quinoa in my coffee grinder) and spread it out over a baking sheet so it's no more than 1/4" high at any one part, and heat it in the oven for 1.5 to 2 hours (depending on your temp...i've been doing about 1.5 hours at 250 and that's been working out very nicely).  once the time is up, just remove the pan, let the flour cool, and carefully pour it into a bag or container for storage.  that's it.  no crazy toasting or roasting or even any supervision, really.  i typically grind my flour, put it in the oven, eat my breakfast, drink my coffee, do my daily workout, and by the time i'm all finished, so is my flour.  it ends up tasting amazing...lightly toasty and a little bit nutty.  and despite being gluten free and therefor producing only unleavened baked goods, it still manages to take on a really light, spongy consistency that retains moisture like a really awesome, high class muffin.  now, i know i've been having a lot of fun with grinding my own flour and all, but if you'd like to try to save a little time, but still want to try out this awesome ingredient, there are commercial varieties of quinoa flour available to buy (bob's red mill, for example, never disappoints), but i can't vouch for their flavor.  based on what i've read, these commercial varieties often need to be heat cured as well to fully eliminate any trace remains of saponins, but who knows.  even if they do, it's so worth the extra little step.  if only so you get to try these little sweethearts:

quick, easy, light, and oh so pretty.  this is my favorite meal cake, yet.  and hey, you can make it in the microwave!!  high five!
now, i've made this cake twice.  once, using some leftover strawberry cream from thursday's post, and once using just fresh strawberries and yogurt (a little easier if you don't have the strawberry cream stuff on hand) with a few other minor variations.  i'm including both recipe options so you can try either variety and see what you like or what you find easiest.  both were amazing.

microwave strawberry quinoa cake

makes one serving

wet ingredients:

• 1/3 cup strawberry yogurt cream OR 1/4 cup sliced fresh strawberries coarsely blended with 1 T greek yogurt (leaving little chunks of fruit is ok if not awesome.  i've even just chopped the berries really, really finely by hand and crushed them with the flat of the blade and then kind of mashed it together with the yogurt using a fork on lazier days when i don't feel like using the blender.  either way works, but doing it by hand will definitely leave you with larger strawberry pieces in your cake)
• 1 egg white (or a flax egg if you'd like to keep it vegan: 1 T flaxmeal mixed with 2 1/2 T water and allowed to sit for 5 minutes)
• 1 1/2 ts vanilla extract
• 1 T agave
• 1 T soy (or any) milk

dry ingredients:

• 1/4 cup heat cured quinoa flour
• 2 ts rolled oats or quick oats OR if you'd like a little bit of a light crunch texture in your cake (kind of like a really nice hearty grain bread) you can use 1 ts raw quinoa with 1 ts raw buckwheat groats
• 2 ts flaxmeal
• heaping 1/4 ts baking powder
• 1/4 ts stevia
• 1 T light shredded coconut

whisk all the wet ingredients together in a bowl.  add each dry ingredient one at a time, mixing after adding each one to ensure it's all evenly combined.  pour mixture into a lightly greased or cooking sprayed microwave safe tupperware, bowl, container, or to make minis (or a tall layered cake) divide into two ramekins.  cover with a paper towel and microwave for about 2 minutes.  let cool for a minute and flip out onto a plate.  voila!

a strawberry newborn fresh out of the microwave.  warm, spongy, and just a little pink!

and now, toppings!  for the first time around, i used up the last of the strawberry cream, a handful of raw cashews, and a little coconut for a creamy, satisfying and very pastel little lunch

loved the cashews on this especially...mmm

for the second time, i made 2 mini cakes in my ceramic ramekins and made a fun personal sized layer cake using some banana yogurt icing (just mush about 1/4 of a ripe banana with a fork and mix in about 1 T yogurt...you can add a tiny bit of sweetener and vanilla if you'd like...but it doesn't absolutely need it) some fresh strawberries and a little dusting of coconut

bright berries peeking out..

so there you have it, guys.  my many adventures in quinoa flour...come to a very sweet, very satsifying, very pink conclusion.  i will definitely be making more versions of this little cake in the future.  so quick, so easy, and so so yummy.  the moist texture along with the light toasty flavor in this are just all too well suited for breakfast cakes and muffins.  a coffee cake idea has been brewing in my head for a while now, so expect to see something along those lines pretty soon.  in the mean time, let me know what you think of these and what your thoughts are on quinoa flour.  i'm definitely hooked...these suckers were a game changer.  enjoy!