Recipe Quinoa Chocolate with Dates

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Amateur1

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I've adapted my recipe to get the sugar from dates rather than Truvia. Please can I have your thoughts?
Am I adding ingredients at the right time?
I was adding the cinnamon at the end, but read in The Science of Spice that it's better to add it early on. If adding early, should I add more?
Any other ingredients which you think will enhance the taste / texture?

QUINOA CHOCOLATE PORRIDGE 2b

Ingredients

83 g quinoa raw (1 500g packet divided into 6)
220 ml water
150 ml (0.25 pints) milk,
2 tbsp (15g) cacao powder
1 tbsp maple syrup
2 Medjool dates
0.75 tsp Tabasco chipotle
0.25 tsp cinnamon
0.25 tsp salt
18g dark chocolate (6 squares Green and Blacks)
About 15g of butter


Instructions

Boil the quinoa then simmer the quinoa in water for 12 minutes as I find the quinoa does not become translucent when boiled in milk.
Whilst the quinoa simmers put the dates, milk and chipotle into a food processor and blitz.
Then add dates etc into the quinoa
Add dark chocolate, cinnamon and butter.
Stir.
Switch off gas for 3 minutes.
Add cacao, maple syrup and salt, stir vigorously and serve. Add more milk if necessary and sugar if desired.
 
I'm thinking of substituting olive oil for butter. If so, should I add it at the same time as the butter?
Am I correct adding the butter after the milk or should I add at the beginning with the water?
 
I would melt the dark chocolate first then add in the butter and cinnamon, then add to the finished dish. I would imagine you believe that olive oil is healthier and the reason to substitute. Given this is one big sugar bomb as far as insulin and insulin control is concerned I wouldn't worry about the butter.
 
I've never melted chocolate except by adding it into the mixture above. What's the best way to melt it? Should I just put it in the microwave?
I'm worried that by following the instructions here, much of the chocolate will end up on the spoon I use to stir.
How to Melt Chocolate
 
Given your reply above, I feel stupid asking this, but hopefully I'll learn something.
I microwaved the chocolate in a plastic freezer container. It all melted except a tiny bit, so I put it on a bit longer.
After it came out I added the butter and cinnamon and stirred it inside the plastic container with a metal spoon.
After about 10 minutes I poured this into the main quinoa mixture.
I lost 10-20% of the chocolate (18g in total) to stickiness.
What's the best way to avoid stickiness?
 
Amateur1 said:
Given your reply above, I feel stupid asking this, but hopefully I'll learn something.
I microwaved the chocolate in a plastic freezer container. It all melted except a tiny bit, so I put it on a bit longer.
After it came out I added the butter and cinnamon and stirred it inside the plastic container with a metal spoon.
After about 10 minutes I poured this into the main quinoa mixture.
I lost 10-20% of the chocolate (18g in total) to stickiness.
What's the best way to avoid stickiness?
Click to expand...
A flexible silicon spatula should do it. Also not being totally melted shouldn't be seen as problematic considering it's going into a a porridge type recipe, it will mix just fine. Cheers
 
A lot of the chocolate stuck to the plastic freezer container. What would you put in the microwave instead of that container?
 
Any type of ceramic bowl then scrap with the silicon spatula that should remove all of it. Alternatively if your still having problems you can compensate by adding little more chocolate but this is a porridge and you could be plus minus by a football field and it won't really make a difference in a recipe like this per se, it'sjust have more or less chocolate. Your way over thinking this.
 
Thanks. I never thought to differentiate between a plastic container and ceramic bowl. I probably am over thinking too.
 
My recipe uses 1 tbsp of maple syrup and 1 tbsp of Truvia. I'm thinking of replacing the maple syrup with sugar.
Should I stick with 1 tbsp of sugar to keep the same sweetness?
I realise that if I want a chocolate flavour then making chocolate uses sugar rather than maple syrup.
Should I add it at the end of the recipe as I do with the maple syrup and truvia or earlier on? If earlier, then when?
 
I had some coconut sugar from when I made chocolate (it's what the recipe said).
I used 13g of coconut sugar instead of the maple syrup. I added it at the end.
It was delicious at the time, but there was an aftertaste. Should I have added it earlier?
Also, if I use a particular weight rather than volume of sugar, will it make a difference which type of sugar I use in terms of the taste and texture?
 
Amateur1 said:
It was delicious at the time, but there was an aftertaste. Should I have added it earlier?
Click to expand...
The only real way of telling if your after taste is associated with the coconut sugar will be to try the coconut sugar by itself. If nothing, try it dissolved in the same milk you're making the porridge with.

As for weight rather than volume of sugar. I can't imagine with a tablespoon of sugar that it will make much difference unless you compare icing sugar with say sugar crystals (designed for coffee). The volume you are using is really too small to affect things too much. If it was 200g instead of 15g then, yes it could in my opinion, make a difference. And obviously if you sprinkle demarara sugar on at the end, compared to say golden caster sugar dissolved in the milk at the beginning, the end result will be different. It's all down to personal taste. My preference would be demarara sugar at the end because I like the crunch!
 
Amateur1 said:
I used 13g of coconut sugar instead of the maple syrup. I added it at the end.
It was delicious at the time, but there was an aftertaste. Should I have added it earlier?
Also, if I use a particular weight rather than volume of sugar, will it make a difference which type of sugar I use in terms of the taste and texture?
Click to expand...
I agree completely with SatNavSaysStraightOn . The only way you´re going to know is to taste it on its own. And if it´s not the coconut sugar, then taste every other ingredient on its own.
With the sugar, my only impression is that you´re over thinking it. A recipe is, after all, merely a guideline and the ultimate arbiter is you. Unless you have an extrordinary palate and/or sense of taste, a bit more here or a bit less here is not going to be appreciable. Even Heston Blumenthal doesn´t write recipes with clinical scientific precision, because when you have different ingredients, purchased at different times in different places, there are bound to be slight variants. If you keep modifying by micro-portions, you´ll probably end up with the eternal recipe formulation task.
Finally, the texture question is almost irrelevant, because the only texture you´ve got in porridge is soft; in this case, soft quinoa.
 
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