Chocolate Quinoa Layer Cake with Chocolate SMB (GF)

Chocolate quinoa layer cake with Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Booya. I feel huge.  I've been eating nonstop since holidays began.  This Chocolate layer cake was a dessert I made for a NYE dinner party.

I doubled my usual cupcake recipe and baked the batter in 8 inch circular pans.  Then I ended up reserving one layer for the freezer as I thought 3 layers would be enough.  And it was.  I had just enough SMB to frost all the sides.  The layers were moist and I did not have to slice them though if you like lots of frosting I guess you could.  However, at that point you would also need way more buttercream.

I thought of melted chocolate decorations as I was too lazy to pipe buttercream around the cake.  I think they turned out quite well considering I had not made these before.  I made big evergreen trees and plastered them on the sides of the cake.  Then I topped the centre of the cake on top with a daisy and a bunch of swirls of chocolate. 





For the over the top Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream, I used THIS recipe and added 4 oz dark melted chocolate to the buttercream.
For the Chocolate Quinoa Layers, I used THIS recipe BUT ADDED 1/4 CUP MORE COOKED QUINOA TO EACH BATCH.  It has more quinoa than the original recipe; is baked in 8 inch layers (2) and I doubled the recipe and added 5-10 minutes to the baking time.  Make the recipe twice because only one batch will fit in your blender or processor anyway.  You will kill your Vitamix if you try to do a double batch (and it won't fit anyway).  Freeze one of the layers so that you'll have 3 layers in total from the double-batch (or make extra cupcakes with the batter after you make 3 layers).