Tuesday, 24 November 2009

• Recipe: "Raw" Chocolate Pie

  
  

  
  

  
  As a vegan, sometimes I have to get creative with food ingredients in recipes, and others not. The challenges of being a vegan, though, are nothing compared to what the Raw Foodie must experience. Everything they eat has to be in its raw state, or dehydrated. Nothing can be cooked above 118 degrees, the heat at which food is dehydrated.
  
  So when I was invited to dinner at a raw foodie's house my head was spinning. How can I make something delightful, and delicious, but uncooked. Well thank God for the internet because I found a recipe for this pie... and altered it to what ingredients were available to me (I will put in parentheses the original ingredients where substitutes were made). So Here we go!!!
  
  Pie Crust
  
  Ingredients:
  

  • 1/2 cup almonds soaked for 8 hours, then drained
  • 3/4 cup pecans
  • 3/4 cup walnuts
  • 3 pitted prunes (4-6 dates)
  • 2 Tbsp agave (2Tbsp maple syrup the heat it is processed at is too high to be considered raw)
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • pinch of sea salt

  Directions:
  
  1. Combine nuts in a food processor, chop until they are a fine meal
  
  
  
  2. Add prunes and agave, blend until mixed
  3. Add cinnamon and salt, blend until mixture form a ball in food processor
  
  
  
  4. Press evenly into a pie plate and refrigerate
  
  
  
  mmmm...mmm delicious... now here where things get weird...
  
  Chocolate Filling
  
  Ingredients:
  

  • 3 avocados (stay with me here, the outcome is truly delicious!)
  • 1/2 cup of agave (1/2 cup maple syrup)
  • 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2  Tbsp tahini (aka: sesame butter)  (cold pressed coconut butter I had none)
  • (3/4 cup raw carob powder I skipped this because I don't like it)
  • 4 Tbsp organic cocoa powder
  • 1/4 cup shredded coconut (optional... I added this because i had no coconut butter)
  • berries of choice

  Directions:
  
  When you choose your avocados make sure to do the touch test. Avocados should be firm, but yield to gentle pressure. Ones that are darker in color tend to be the best place to start.
  
  1. Cut your avocados in half
  
  
  (aren't they pretty? Avocados are so beautiful on the inside!)
  
  2. Pit your avocados and scoop out the flesh into your food processor along with the vanilla, tahini, shredded coconut and agave. Blend away (a blender also works for this)
  
  
  (wiggle the spoon between the flesh and skin and scoop it out like ice cream)
  
  3.  Once it is nicely blended add in your cocoa powder and blend.
  
  
  (mmm... chocolate... you can tell it was avocado because there is some green on my spatula)
  
  4. Fill in your pie crust and top with berries
  
  
  
  Ta-Da!!! The chocolate turned out similar to pudding in taste, I actually took some that was left over and just dipped raspberries in it and ate it. I was pleasantly surprised and fully intend to make it again whether raw foodies are around or not. Also, this pie managed to pass a five-year-old's taste test. He loved the chocolate filling.
  
  Have you ever tried cooking raw?
  

  • 3:45 PM
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