coconut oil

Raw Cacao Fruit Balls

It’s been a while, but I’ve found another recipe that’s once again worth sharing. I’ve seen versions of this one on different videos and blogs over the years, but I’ve never really gotten around to reproducing them or playing with the flavors. That is, I’ve always tried to over complicate the treat by trying to make it more like a conventional truffle. Well, it doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, it should be simple.

There are three things that really stand out about this recipe. 1) Its easy. 2) It tastes great and 3) it will keep you wired for hours! I’m really shocked at how wired someone can get off just a little raw cacao. I make it a point now to not eat these any later than about three in the afternoon. If not, well, you’ll find it really easy to not fall asleep in the evening. I guess if I was going out, this would be the perfect pre-function snack.

Recipe:

  • 1 cup dried fruit. (In this case Apricots, in previous cases cherries)
  • 8 large medjool dates
  • ¼ cup cacao
  • 2-3 Tablespoons Almond butter
  • ½ cup raw almonds
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla powder
  • 1 teaspoon coconut oil
  • Pinch sea salt

Add the dried fruit to the food processor first and chop until it’s as fine as possible. Apricots tend to break up into little square pieces. Cherries break down further, but the idea is to get it broken down while it’s still mostly dry. Next, add the vanilla powder, salt and Almond butter. Spin the food processor a bit longer. The mixture should break down even more. After it starts to stick together a little, add the dates and coconut oil. It won’t take long after that before you’ve got a big ball of paste.

It might actually feel more like fudge. This batch felt and tasted a bit like the filling in a Fig Newton. It was a bit tacky, yet kind of dry when it was pulled apart. As you can see, I piled it up on a plate and then reused the food processor to break down the raw almonds. You want to break them down into very small pieces, but not as fine as flower.

I didn’t take a picture, but at this point I rolled the ‘fudge’ into little round balls. I like them small. If they are too big, everyone wants to bite them in half and then crumbs fall all over the place. If they are small, it’s just one bite and no mess!

Note that the almond crumbs are for rolling the balls in. It makes them easy to pick up for the oil in the mixture will get on your figures, but not if there is a coating of something to block it.

This recipe makes a couple dozen (as you can see in the picture).

I love the fact that I can take a half hour and make a plate full of snacks for the week. I’ll probably take 4 or 5 a day everyday for lunch until they’re gone. I couldn’t tell you the count of calories, but I get the feeling that it’s not too bad. The cacao in it makes for a great pick-me-up after lunch. I can see myself making a lot more of these in the coming months. The only really tricky ingredient is the almond butter. Yet, I figure I’ve got ½ a jar left so I can make a couple more batches!

You are what you eat! – Thus, I must be a little nutty! 

See you soon.

Fermented Cashew Cheesecake

Wow! Who would have ever thought that something as ugly as a cashew could be transformed into a decadent desert with a little fungal help! If you haven’t made the time to brew up some Rejuvelac so you can make a fermented nut cheesecake, well, you just haven’t lived! Really. I’ve now made three and everyone that’s tried it has nothing but praise (they like it – really).

After starting my first batch of Rejuvelac (a couple weeks ago), I did a little research to figure out what to do with it. When Googling around, I found The Raw Seed website. Hidden on that sight is an amazing fermented nut cheesecake recipe! It’s got some great pictures too, so I highly recommend stopping by (The Raw Seed Cheesecake). They’ve also got some videos there, but I still haven’t found the time to watch them all the way through. I guess this one is so easy that the videos should have been about 90 seconds long!

Wha-da-ya-think?

Does that look good or what? That was the bulk of my lunch today!  Yes, I know it’s a quarter of the cake! But it’s only an 8 inch spring-form. This slice is probably about the size of a slice of ‘real’ cheesecake you’d get at The Cheesecake Factory. It’s also loaded with oils so I give it an A+ for keeping me warm in the winter.

This is the third one that I’ve made so far and I’ve already been asked to make a fourth – for a wedding party (of all events). So I’ve learned a bit about it that I can actually share – more than simply the pictures. So here it is…

Process (Recipe):

To start, you’ve got to create the Rejuvelac. The Raw Seed has a little video that outlines the process, or you can look back at what I did here and here. Making good Rejuvelac is key to making this work.

I’ve also soaked 2 cups raw cashews over the day and rinsed them well.

Now, following the recipe outlined at The Raw Seed, I take the two cups soaked cashews, the teaspoon nutritional yeast and 2/3 cup Rejuvelac and blend until it’s smooth as butter.

This is what you see in the bowl. I took the picture as I was wrapping it up so it can ferment for the next 24 hours. I’ve also got an old nut milk bag that I’m wrapping it in so as to keep bad stuff out.

The next day, it looks like this:

Notice all the little ‘air’ pockets around the edge of the bowl. The normally heavy feeling ground up nuts are light a fluffy. It’s spongy!

Next, we process up the crust.

If you look closely, you’ll notice that I’ve got ½ cup almonds, ½ cup pecans, ¼ cup raisins, ½ teaspoon vanilla powder, 1 Tablespoon honey, 1 Tablespoon coconut oil and more than a pinch of salt. This all gets blended in the food processor until it starts to stick. At that point, you press it into a oiled spring-form pan. Looks something like this:

Now we get out the blender to mix the fermented nuts with 2/3 cup liquid coconut oil, ½ cup honey, ½ teaspoon vanilla powder and 1/8th teaspoon salt. Even though the nuts are light a creamy, it’s hard work for the blender to mix. Turn it on and do just that. It’s going to end up rather thick, so you’re not going to get it to run out of the blender. This is something that you’re going to have to dig out.

Once you’ve got it all in the spring-form, smoothen the top and give it a gentle giggle to help it settle. You don’t want air pockets in the cake. Here is what you should end up with.

The pecans give the crust a strong appeal that’s complemented well with caramel. If you have a little latte syrup sitting around, drizzle a bead back and forth over the top as an accent. When I did this, everyone marveled at the presentation for they don’t know me as a chief at all!

This is another desert that I highly recommend. And it’s much easier on the digestion than you might think when you think about eating a cake of all nuts. The Fermentation really changes this. After having tasted fermented cashews, I’ll probably never want them any other way.

Let me know what you think!

Update:

Ok.  I’ve made a few slight modifications to this cheesecake recipe. For starters, I’m now using a full size cheesecake spring-form. The little 8 inch just doesn’t cut it. It’s not BIG enough!

For the crust – I really like pecans and dates. The flavors seem to go better with the fermented cashews. I spell it out like this:

Filling:

  • 3 cups cashews (soaked for 8 hours)
  • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 1 cup rejuvelac

Split into two halve and blend each half independently. 3 cups cashews is too much for a blender. 1 cup is not enough, so look at running almost two cups, remove a cup or more and then add the remaining nuts. Place this mixture in a bowl, cover with cheesecloth (or nut milk bag) and let stand for 24 hours.

Crust:

  • 1 cup almonds (soaked overnight and let sit)
  • 1/1 cup pecans straight from the freezer
  • About 6 large medjool dates (makes for a sweeter crust)
  • ½+ tsp vanilla powder (get the best you can find)
  • ½ tsp sea salt
  • 1 Tbsp melted coconut oil

Run it in the food processor like shown above and press it into the pan.

Back to filling:

  • 1 cup melted coconut oil
  • 2/3rds cup honey
  • 1 tsp vanilla powder
  • 1/8th tsp Sea Salt
  • Plus fermented cashews

Melt the coconut oil and place it on the blender first. Add honey and then the fermented (bread dough) cashews (then add the remaining ingredients). The order is pretty important. You want the oil first so that as things get spinning it get lubricated. Placing the cashews in first makes it really hard for the blender to suck in the oil.

I guess my spring-form pan is about 12 inches. The resulting cheesecake will have a very thin crust and a cake that’s a bit over an inch high. It’s perfect for the person that complains about large treats after dinner. Just cut it small and it won’t seem too big to anyone!

Raw Coconut Cream Pie

Turns out that this little pie is becoming a staple around here. I love the creaminess of the filling and how it complements the sweet crust. Everything in it mixes perfectly and it really does satisfy any cream pie craving that you might have.

When I first starting making this recipe, I followed the directions explicitly. Now I find that it doesn’t really matter much and you can change things up enough to call it your own!

Originally, the I followed the recipe from this book.

Now I kind of follow what’s in my head. I don’t like it quite as sweet and I like powdered vanilla rather than extract. I also cut back on the salt but add more coconut meat (the best part). The collection of goods that you’ll need to get this one done looks like this:

Notice here I’ve got:

  • 2 young Thai coconuts
  • ¾ cup Raw Coconut oil
  • 2 Tbs Lecithin granules
  • Unsweetened raw organic coconut flakes
  • Chef’s grade organic vanilla powder
  • Celtic Sea Salt
  • Bag of Deglet Noor Dates

Tools:

Cuisinart for processor, small food scale and a Vita-Mix blender. I don’t know how you’d make this recipe without these tools.

Let’s get creating!

The first thing you’ll need the Cusinart for is to make date paste. I weighed out 8 ounces of Deglet Noor dates before dropping them one by one into the running Cusinart. Because these puppies are so dry, they tend to chop up rather than mush up. You want them mushy, thus you might need to add a bit of water. I added about 1 Tablespoon’s worth.

After scraping the food processor, I got out just about what I put in (water probably made the difference). ½ this paste you’ll use for the crust, the other half to sweeten the filling.

So, move four ounces back to the food processor and add at least 2 cups coconut flakes. At this point, you’ll want to also add about 1 (small) teaspoon vanilla powder and just a pinch of salt. Now we want to process the flakes to mix with the date paste so that it becomes just a little sticky.

I had to add a little water (maybe a teaspoon’s worth) to get it to stand up like that. At this point, it’s really to move to the pie container. As it turns out, we have some perfect size salad bowls that double as a pie ‘tin’ for this pie.

The secret to working this crust together is to start on the sides. Using one hand, press the mixture into the side of the pan and with the other hand, make sure it doesn’t exceed the height of the bowl. You’ll probably work around the pie a few times getting it just right. When the sides are well formed and just the right thickness, you work on the bottom with whatever is left over.

Now set that aside for a few moments because we’re now going to whip up the filling.

The best part of the pie is the meat! Here, I’ve got just over a cup of meat that I’m going to mix in. This is what I scraped out of those two Young Thai Coconuts. Notice that there is a bit more coconut water than what we’ll use.

To the blender, add two cups coconut water (at room temperature), the meat (shown above), ¾ melted coconut oil, at least 1 teapsoon powdered Vanilla, a big pinch of Celtic Sea Salt, the last 4 ounces date paste and 2 Tbs lecithin granules.

Blend.

When you start bending, you’ll notice that the top of the mixture will be quite viscous. As the oil really goes to work, the mixture will thin out and almost start dancing in the blender before you’re minute (of counting) is up.

The unfortunate part is that there are a lot of bubbles in the final solution. I try to gently shake some of them out, but when you pure it into the crust, you’ll get bubbles!

If you’re careful, you can use gravity to remove some of the bubbles. After pouring the mixture into the crust, I gently jiggle the pie so as to make the bubbles rise to the surface. Then I lift the pie a couple millimeters off the counter and let it drop. If it were a metal pan – like a spring form – I’d lift it higher and work it thoroughly until all the bubbles rise and pop. But in this case, I’ve got a ceramic bowl that I have to be really careful with. Thus it’s a delicate process of working the bubbles out for me.

At this point, it goes in the fridge long enough for the coconut oil to congeal and the lecithin to setup. Most the time I simply let it sit overnight.

Oh, and don’t forget about the extra coconut water that you might have. If you don’t simply drink it, make ice cubes!

These ice cubes are great for making sorbet!  See my Blueberry Coconut Sorbet, you won’t be sorry!

Blueberry Bliss Cheesecake

I’m excited because not only am I going to be able to show you a beautiful desert, but I’m going to be able to point you to the complete recipe!

This is one of the first raw deserts I learned to make. It’s wonderfully simple and seems to deliver amazing results every time. I’ve served it at Thanksgiving and eaten it for lunch many a times! Yum.

So here it is – Blueberry Bliss!

Look at that! Right out of the spring-form!

If that’s too much, here’s a little serving.

It’s amazing how the close-up shows all the details. I worked for at least a minute jiggling and dropping this spring-form just after pouring the berry mixture in and I still didn’t get all the bubbles out.

When making this desert, the one thing that I’d recommend more than anything else is to make sure you use the best cashews that you can find. Don’t get anything that’s old. Get whole nuts (beans) as fresh as can be.

Also, I use frozen berries (See my Oh My God – Blueberry Sorbet for a picture of the brand). But, when you use frozen berries, they thaw down to at least ½ size. Thus, I pour 4 cups berries into a measuring cup and place them in the dehydrator until they’ve warmed up to 100 degrees. Thus, with the recipe, I’m using a few more berries then what Carmella uses.

Also note that I also place the cacao butter/coconut mixture in the dehydrator to melt along with the berries.

Without further ado, the best write-up is from the source. The Sunny Raw Kitchen’s Bliss-full Blueberry Cheesecake.

…

Well, what did you think of her desert?  The blueberries over the top just seem … a little over the top. Thus, you don’t see that in my picture.

I also changed the crust a little simplifying it.

What the heck, I’ve changed it quite a bit. I guess I should include my measurements for comparison.

Crust:

  • ¾ cup soaked almonds
  • ¼ cup coconut flakes
  • 1 tablespoon cacao
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla powder
  • Pinch Celtic Sea Salt
  • 2 Medjhool dates
  • Little squeeze Raw Agave

I guess I don’t really like brazil nuts and I’ve found that I like the coconut flakes a little better than the powdered stuff. I put it all together like she does – using a food processor. With the almonds I soak them for maybe 6-8 hours and then let them dry. You want to work with dry nuts

Filling:

  • 4 cups frozen blueberries
  • 1 cup dry cashews – the best you can find
  • 5 Tbsp melted coconut butter
  • 2 Tbsp melted cacao butter
  • ¼ cup honey
  • 1 Tbsp lemon juice
  • Big pinch of Celtic Sea Salt.

Now, the real trick is getting it creamy without overdoing it. So, I approach the process just a little different than she does. I place the nuts in the blender and give them a whirl. It only takes 20 seconds (or so) before the nuts stick together and let the blade run free. At this point, I add everything else. The juice from the melted blueberries soaks down into the nuts softening them a little while you’re piling everything else on top.

Then, when you actually blend this up, let it run a little longer than you would normally do for smoothies. Remember that you started with warm ingredients, but you don’t want to cook them. Thus, feel the side of the blender as it’s getting creamy and make sure it’s not too hot.

Before pouring it into the spring-form, taste it. You should find yourself licking your fingers!

After you’ve poured the berry mixture into the pan, tap the pan so as to encourage the air bubbles to come to the surface. This might take a little extra coxing, so don’t by distracted by that little bit of mixture that you want to keep tasting!

When it cools, the butter and nuts will set-up giving it that standard cheesecake feel. I normally let it sit overnight.

It’s absolutely a keeper recipe. I make it for lunches!

Enjoy.