Trader Joe's Fudgy Chocolate Quinoa Loaf and Cake Mix

Taste and review

I like to pick things apart step by step. So here we go.

First, all you need to make this is 4 eggs, water, and oil. So in terms of adding things you are good. Having made this, you can totally add in other things to supplement this like chocolate chips or candy to make this more delicious.

Second, when mixing these items you get a chocolate mix in this box plus some chocolate syrup. So there are actually two additional plastic bags in this box. No big deal in my world. Just more packaging that I can't really see a way around.

After mixing all the required items together I made this in a loaf pan. After making the Bourbon Cake Mix this past winter, I wanted to use a more standard shape. Plus that mix didn't even come half way up the side of the pan making it hard to gaze into the oven to see how things were progressing.

Well, if you are going the route of the loaf pan, be warned: this nearly fills an entire loaf pan. Which in my case caused me to panic and put a cookie sheet under it should anything go wrong. And in my world, I don't like cleaning the oven.

I'm happy to report that while it did rise past the top of the loaf pan, nothing spilled. ::Phew::

Now, I don't know if the addition of the extra cookie sheet added cooking time, but according to the box, this needs just about an hour. Well, I was at an hour and 14 minutes when my cake tester came out clean.

I do hate it when they don't mention whether or not it needs to sit in the pan for a bit. So I gave it a 10-minute rest in the pan before removing it.

It still needed quite a while to cool down, but what I was rewarded with was delicious chocolate cake. It doesn't rise to brownie fudge level. Nope. It's cake. It's relatively light in texture, just not in calories.

My loaf is apparently 15 servings. However, to be fair, the cake is pretty rich tasting, so that will slow you down.

Had I not known that this mix was gluten-free, it would be hard to tell. With one exception: the edges and top. They didn't quite get the right. The edges aren't pillowy soft the way a flour-based cake would be. But otherwise, they really did nail this.