MY FIRST EVER CAKE - FLOURFREE SUGARFREE ZUCCHINI QUINOA CHOCOLATE CAKE

Last New Years eve I made a sankalpa to go cane sugar free for one year. Surprisingly, it has been quite easy knowing the sweet tooth I had once upon a time. This sankalpa offered me a great opportunity to learn and experiment more with natural sweeteners. From these experiments arose the Zucchini Quinoa Chocolate cake - a yummy, moist, luscious kapha treat! It has zucchini, quinoa and is made using almond meal. So, in a way, it is a meal in itself! Also, please do not be overwhelmed by the number of ingredients or the procedure to prepare this cake. Having grown up in India, I have always been a bit nervous working with ovens and cakes, but now I feel much comfortable after trying it a few times.

Since this is a chocolate cake, I would like to share a few things I learnt about chocolate in past two years. When I was growing up, having a chocolate was a rarity. And I would not be surprised if my parents did not even know what a chocolate was when they were growing up. However, chocolate has now become affordable in India - a country with a billion people. And a similar thing is happening in China. So, add another billion. This has resulted into a rapid surge in the demand of cocoa beans.

60% of world's cocoa beans (as per the 2010 BBC Panorama documentary titled "Chocolate The Bitter Truth") is produced in Ivory Coast and Ghana. Most of the top brand names in chocolate source their cocoa beans from Ivory Coast and Ghana. This sudden rise in demand of cocoa beans has led to cut throat competition among the cocoa bean farmers of Ivory Coast and Ghana (countries with very poorly administered labor laws) leading to child labor and slave child labor. So, it is very likely that the chocolate your child is consuming has been produced using the labor of another unfortunate child. 

One, 'reasonably' foolproof way of ensuring that your chocolate was not made by children is to buy 'fair trade'. There have been some instances in the past where it was found that cocoa beans from farms employing child labor and slave labor got labelled as fair trade. So, like I said, it is not a completely foolproof way but a reasonably foolproof way of ensuring that the chocolate is child labor/slave labor free. A good amount of information is available on the internet if you want to find out more about fair trade. Also, here is the link for the excellent BBC documentary: "Chocolate The Bitter Truth". So, the next time you buy a cocoa bean product, try if you can to ensure that it is untainted and free of karmic implications. Just a small way in which you CAN make a difference.

Ayurvedic information: The cake is made up of many different ingredients but overall, this cake is high in kapha dosha. Most sweets are high in kapha dosha. But please don't consider the dosha information too much when you are eating a cake! However, one advice I would like to give about this cake is to consume only half the size of the normal cake slice at one time. The cake is made from almond meal which is far more heavier than grain flour. 

Preparation time: 1.5 hours (45 minutes if you decide to use ready made almond meal) 

Cooking time: 1 hour

Difficulty: Medium

Type: Dessert/Sweets

Vegan: No

Ingredients:

Dry ingredients:

2 cups almond meal

1 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients:

2 eggs

1 small-medium sized banana

1 cup cooked quinoa

1 cup grated zucchini

3/4 cup agave syrup

1 tbsp coconut oil

For lining the cake pan:
1 tsp Butter/Ghee/Coconut oil
1 tbsp wholegrain flour (any grain is okay as long as it is wholegrain)
Baking paper

Preparation:

1. I make my almond meal at home because it tastes better, it is cheaper and it is just such an engrossing sadhana. This is a process which will help develop patience and one-pointedness. Dry roast the almonds in a pan on a slow to medium flame. Inhale the wafting scent of the almonds and listen how the almonds crack as you roast them. Keep stirring the almonds every once in a while and make them the object of your dharana as you roast them. After about 15 minutes, take a few out and let them cool before you try them. If ready, turn the heat off, spread the roasted almonds on a plate and let them cool.
2. Blend these cooled down almonds in a blender till you have a coarse powder. If you keep blending them beyond this point, it will start becoming sticky and you will get almond butter. Pass this coarse almond powder through a large fine strainer and you will get homemade almond meal. The large coarse bits of almond will be left behind in the strainer. I have tried blending these again but they turn into sticky almond butter. So, I store them for later use in my cooking. You can use it in salads, pastas or stir fries. This completes the process of making almond meal. Alternatively, you can buy ready made almond meal from the shops.
3. To get one cup cooked quinoa, take 1/3 cup quinoa in a pan and add double the quantity of water. Heat on a high flame till the water starts to boil. Then, turn the flame to slow and cover the pan with the lid. Cook for 10 minutes. Turn the heat off but keep the lid on and let it stand for 10 minutes. Remove the lid and fork the quinoa to let the steam escape. Close your eyes and inhale the quinoas earthy aroma. Quinoa is ready.
4. Mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl gently using your hands. 
5. Take all the wet ingredients in a separate bowl and blend using a blender. Now, add the dry ingredients spoon by spoon into the wet mixture as you continue blending. Blend till the mixture is uniformly mixed. This should not take more than 10-15 minutes.
6. Preheat the oven at 200°C.
7. In the meanwhile, coat the inner walls of the cake pan with ghee/butter/coconut oil and sprinkle some wholemeal flour on it lightly. Line only the bottom of the cake pan with baking paper. 
8. Pour the cake mixture into the cake pan and make sure that the mixture settles evenly in the cake pan. Now, bake the cake in the oven for about 45-60 minutes at around 200°C. The time and the temperature may vary slightly depending upon the kind of oven you use. 
9. Take the cake out when it is ready and let it stand inside the cake pan for up to 5 minutes. How does one know that the cake is ready? - I usually insert a butter knife through the cake. If it comes out without much material sticking to it, then the cake is ready. 
10. To take the cake out of the cake pan, cover the cake pan with a plate. Now, in one fell swoop, invert the cake pan and the plate so that the plate is now at the bottom and the cake pan at the top. Shake it a bit and the cake will fall on to the plate. This may seem elementary to many people but when I baked by cake for the first time, I struggled with it and it would have really helped me if I had this information. The cake is now ready to be consumed.

Pitfalls:

1. When roasting the almonds, don't be hasty and put the flame on high. This will only burn the almonds. The roasted almonds taste the best when they are roasted over slow-medium heat. 
2. Before you taste or blend the almonds, it is important to let them cool down to be completely dry.

Notes:

1. Some people prefer using cacao powder in their cakes instead of cocoa powder. The difference between cacao and cocoa is that cacao is a more pure unprocessed form of the cocoa beans. Whereas cocoa powder results from roasting the cocoa beans at high temperatures. This does not mean that the cocoa powder becomes harmful. It just means that it has less nutritional value and less anti oxidants as compared to cacao powder. Cocoa powder is also cheaper than cacao powder. Due to all these reasons, in my opinion, it is better to use cocoa powder in cakes. Because it would be a waste to use natural, unprocessed and expensive cacao powder which would be heated at a high temperature during the baking process thereby reducing its anti oxidant properties.  
2. Please refer my post Getting Started With Ayurveda for understanding of Ayurvedic terms and concepts.