Chocolate Espresso Quinoa Cake

Trevor and I had a mild panic attack over the weekend when we logged into our WeddingWire account and the countdown kindly reminded us that it was 20 days until our wedding.

Ummmmm, say what? Seriously where did all this time go? Did we not just celebrate the 4-month before wedding date yesterday? (Not really, but you get the picture).

So with a little less than 3 weeks until the big show, we’ve been dedicating a good part of our weekends to making lists, picking up supplies, paying final deposits, contacting vendors, family members and our wedding party with all the little details about the traveling days, rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. As such, with so many little details, I’m constantly on the brink of panic with thoughts of “I SWEAR I’M FORGETTING SOMETHING” entering my brain every 5-20 seconds.

Amongst all the panic, I also keep joking with Trevor that as I’ve never planned a wedding before, I’m sure to have this planning thing down by the time it comes to organizing my second wedding. Yeah, I’m such a riot, but I can’t take credit because I’m sure that I ripped that one from a Modern Family episode.

Speaking of Trevor, he’s been amazing through all this considering the amount of work that has piled up in the last month. We’re both taking two weeks off from our jobs in August (the week of the wedding and the week after for our NYC honeymoon) and this put a bit of a damper on his work schedule. So besides working late to finish up last minute projects and helping me plan the wedding in odd hours of the night, he’s also taken on the momentous tasks of keeping me calm/sane, reminding me to eat at regular hours and making sure I wander off to bed when I’m grumpy and exhausted.

I think I picked a winner. 🙂

Miraculously, within all of our panic-attacks, I’ve still found time to bake and photograph this beautiful cake over the weekend. In between hitting three different stores in one Saturday morning, to attending a (surprise!) bachelorette party on Sunday afternoon, we enjoyed bites of this dark chocolate espresso cake. In trying to keep in the theme of fitting into said day-of dress, I opted for a flour free variety and used quinoa instead of flour. Unfortunately my food processor is not the best, so as much as I sweated and swore, I could not get the quinoa quite as smooth as I wanted. However, the little added crunch was a nice surprise and this cake paired well with a generous spoonful of coconut whipped cream (Angela has the best step-by-step tutorial). This cake also uses coconut oil instead of butter/margarine, so I like to pretend that I’m healthy when I’m reaching for that second piece.

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Yield: Two 8" cakes

Chocolate Espresso Quinoa Cake

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 cups cooked quinoa
• 1/3 cup almond milk
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 cup coconut oil
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp espresso powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350*F. Lightly grease two 8 inch round cake pans.
2. Using a large food processor, puree the quinoa and almond milk until smooth.
3. In a large bowl, mix together quinoa mixture, eggs, vanilla and coconut oil with a wooden spoon. Set aside.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together brown sugar, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking powder and baking soda. Combine the wet and dry ingredients into one bowl until just mixed.
5. Separate the batter evenly into the two cake pans and and bake for 35 minutes. The cakes will be done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
6. Cool on a wired rack and gently remove the cakes from the pans.

Recipe adapted from The Kitchen Operas