Chocolate Hazelnut Teacakes

Shield your eyes, gentle reader, I've started another pottery class! As always, its with a fun group of people. In addition to my new-found infatuation with clay, I'm continuing my experiments with olive oil. As Beans and Caviar pointed out, choosing the right olive oil is critical.

I came across a recipe for Chocolate, Hazelnut, Banana and Olive Oil Teacakes at La Tartine Gourmand. She had me at "Chocolate"!! Her post was titled "A Healthy Sunday in March". sigh. I was whisking eggs by the time I reached "and Olive Oil Teacakes"!

Heres what I did:
1. The original recipe is featured here.
2. I substituted about a quarter cup dates, soaked in a little Grand Marnier for the banana. Since the dates were sweet, I reduced the sugar by a tablespoon.
3. Used walnuts instead of pecans.
4. Baked in a loaf pan instead of muffin cups.

The verdict:
The teacake is full of gentle sweetness and all kinds of goodness. Perfect for a late afternoon pick-me up with tea (ha), milk or hot chocolate. I ground the quinoa at home (as against buying quinoa flour) and so the texture of my teacake was a little grainy but otherwise I loved the end product. The cake gets its fluffiness from eggs. My favorite part about this cake is that its sweet but not a sugar-bomb. Plus its gluten-free. Nice change from my usual suspects!

Update: Made a modified version with 4 oz chocolate and no banana or dates. Used barley flour instead of quinoa flour and the results are still very good. Yum!



More Gluten Free alternatives at Gluten A Go Go! See you all at "Go Ahead Honey, It's Gluten Free". The theme for April is Finger Food!