Apricot Tarts with Chocolate Sauce(vegan) Recipe by Veganlicious
These pretty tarts are very nice and light, especially nice after a full meal. Using a heart shaped tart form makes them a perfect dessert for Valentine’s Day.
Serves 4 people
For the Crust:
1 & 1/4 Cups Unbleached White Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
2 TB Powdered Sugar
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 Cup Coconut Oil (measure it in solidified form, in a dry measure)
This exotic sounding Sticky Date Lovers with Upside Down Sugar Cane Whipped Cream dessert tastes equally exotic and is a perfect choice to end a perfect, raw and healthy meal. It has a rich and naturally sweet taste with a nutty flavor and melt-in-mouth texture. With a rich taste and an exotic combination of nuts and flavors, this is sure to be a lovely finish to your meals.
Serves about 4 people
For the Sticky Date Cake:
12 dried dates, seeds removed and soaked in ¼ cup coconut water
This healthy treat is very versatile with different ingredients and measurements. Play around with it. You may prefer to try other butters with it like cashew or macadamia nut. Or leave out the coconut if you don’t like the subtle coconut flavor. However I find the addition of the coconut butter to make it far lighter and creamier.
I was inspired to create a raw version of this after seeing something similar ‘cooked’ in a cafe one rainy afternoon. The mix of chocolate and orange is a classic and can really hit the spot when you’re looking to spoil yourself or your guests.
Coconut Persimmon Flan with Strawberry, Mango, and Banana Salsa (raw)
Young Thai coconut has to be my all time favorite ‘raw food’ ingredient. It’s so versatile; you can use it in sweet or savory recipes. I tend to have a sweet tooth, so I end up using it mostly for puddings, flan, or tart fillings.
The only thing I hate is the labor involved in hacking the coconuts open, scraping out the meat, and cleaning it. There’s just no easy way about it. Other that that, they’re great! I’ve experimented with several different knives. I destroyed my very expensive Viking cleaver- it worked, but the blade is too thin. I tried a couple of those cheap Chinese cleavers, but they don’t seem to be sharp enough. The guys at Northwestern Cutlery in Chicago (www.futurechef.com) came up with the solution- a heavy-duty cleaver that I think they use for chopping off fish heads (gross, I know). It was either that or a machete, and that would have just been too crazy.
This recipe makes enough crust for abut 10 tarts if you are using 4 1/2-inch shells. At the restaurant we use 3-inch shells, which are a nice size for a small dessert. Smooth-sided tart shells work best for this recipe, but any kind will do. If you try making a large tart, the crust should be a bit thicker to withstand the pressure of removing it from the shell or using a tart ring would work well too. As with the sour cherry tart, the recipe calls for both coarse and fine almond flour. Again, you can just grind the almonds and use 3 cups total, rather than separating between the coarse and fine crumbs. However, to make a slightly more refined crust, you may want to sift through the nut crumbs to remove any larger pieces – either way it will taste the same.
Try also serving it with the Vanilla Cream and spiced pinch of ground ginger.
True story: I got a call last week from the Food Network of all places. There is/was a contest going on called the Ultimate Recipe Contest- basically looking for the best recipe in six different categories (chicken, pasta, comfort foods, burgers, cookies and cakes). The casting director had come across my personal website www.somelikeitraw.net and thought that I would be able to come up with some pretty unique recipes for the contest and wanted me to enter some.
I have to admit I was a little flattered and a wee bit surprised. Yet another sign that raw food has hit the mainstream!! Anyways, I’ve entered my manicotti recipe for the ‘Pasta’ category and came up with a new chocolate cake recipe for the ‘Cake’ category which I am sharing with you today.
A lot of people ask where I get my ideas from. It does vary, but many times it’s just looking at a cooked recipe and trying to convert it to raw. This time I happened to have an old Gourmet magazine lying around with a fabulous photo of a chocolate-glazed hazelnut mousse cake on the cover. The light bulbs went off and I set to work on creating it ‘raw-style’. Hope you like it and wish me luck with the contest!
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