With friends coming to stay this weekend, I was looking for a recipe to truly impress even the most sceptical of traditional eaters that the world of raw may have something to offer. This totally indulgent chocolate truffle recipe (aka Brigaderios) from Matthew Kenney’s Everyday Raw Desserts certainly hit the spot and may well be a regular – rolling them in chocolate nibs gave a satisfying crunch ensuring that they were a little out of the ordinary. Taking only 20 minutes to whip up 24 of these beauties they come thoroughly recommended…

Raw food carrot cupcake

Carrot cake with a classic cream cheese frosting is one of my favourite foods in the whole world. So the search for a great raw food version is high on my radar. For my first attempt at carrot (cup)cakes I had a go at the recipe from ChoosingRaw.com.

Now the recipe does call for carrot pulp. And if you don’t have a juicer or a friend who is gifting you said pulp, the advice is to grate your carrots and then squeeze them so that most of their juice had come out. So I did this in my milk bag (turning it orange in the process) and produced about a 1/2 cup of juice. This clearly wasn’t enough…

After leaving my little cupcake friends in the fridge for 2 hours, in their little heart shaped cases, they were still, shall we say, a little moist. As someone who loves cake mixture this was kind of ok, but I didn’t think it would past muster with more traditional guests. So I popped them into the dehydrator for 10 hours at 40c.

Even after this, the inside was a little moister than I would have liked:

Texture of raw carrot cupcake

but it wasn’t a complete disaster… I still managed to wolf down 5 of these beauties over the course of the week, topped with the cashew nut frosting (which I added ALOT more lemon juice to, to get a more authentic taste)…

My search for the perfect carrot cake continues…

Chocolate is the first thing I ever made that was knowingly ‘raw food cooking’ – of course aside from any traditional salads etc, but those obviously don’t count. This recipe comes from my good friend Jen who taught me the wizardry of raw food chocolate in the comfort of her kitchen one cold winters day. It has now become a firm favourite, and I have even wondered off the beaten path and started exploring different flavours (macca and rose water, lavandar, and mint as well as the more traditional fruit and nut bars).

Oh, and a professional mould definitely works wonders bringing a touch of class to your efforts…

Ingredients are a little more involved that usual as some require some melting, but are totally worth the effort:

• 1/2 cup of cacao butter (expensive but I have found some good discounts online, for example www.oneclickpharmacy.co.uk.)
• 3 1/2 tablespoons of cacao powder
• 2 1/2 tablespoons carob powder (to save a few pennies)
• 2 tablespoons of coconut oil (to give a good shine to the chocolate, and melted in the microwave)
• 2 1/2 tablespoons of agave nectar
• Stem crystallised ginger for the filling (optional, and replaceable with nuts, dried fruit etc)

Start by measuring out the cacao butter into a heat proof bowl:

And either melt using a bain marie or in the microwave using a low setting:

Next sieve the cacao powder and carob powder into a bowl:

And then prepare your moulds (plastic lids from take away containers can be used as a cheap substitute to make thin bars which can then be broken up) adding any fillings – in this case the stem ginger:

You then need to work quickly adding the powders to the melted cacao butter, along with the coconut oil and agave nectar:

Mixing well until a dark, rich chocolatey consistency is achieved and no lumps remain:

Immediately pour carefully into the moulds (acting quickly as the chocolate can start to set quite quickly):

Pouring any remaining mixture over some fruit and nuts laid on a plastic lid:

Then place in the fridge until set (about 2 hours or more).

These have a wonderful melt in the mouth texture and won’t last long, but if you are lucky enough for them to stick around, do keep well in the fridge.

Cheese cake is one of my favourite puds. Combined with the fact that substituting sweet things for something raw and healthy is proving the most effective way to introduce more healthy food into my daily life, raw cheese cake was a no brainer as my next foray into the world of raw and naked.

Again it is actually super simple and just requires lots of blitzing.

The crust involved:

• 1/2 cup of nuts (mixture of macadamia nuts and walnuts)
• 1/4 cup of fresh dates pitted

Tipped into the trusty blender:

And whizzed for a good few minutes:

Until the mixture resembled sticky breadcrumbs:

This was then pressed into 4 ramekins (left over from previous Gu pudding indulgences!):

The cheese cake mixture consisted of:

• 1 cup of cashew nuts – socked overnight in water
• 1/4 cup of lemon juice
• 1/4 cup agave nectar
• 1/4 cup of coconut oil (liquified by being placed in microwave on defrost for a minute)
• Splash of water

In a bid to kick my chocolate button habit, my first exploration into the raw and naked has focused on finding the perfect chocolate brownie.

Looking on various blogs, websites and cookery books it looks as if some magic can be created with only a few ingredients – 3 -4 in fact:

Can something truly scrummy be made from this simple mix?

• 100g macadamia nuts
• 100g walnut pieces (cheaper than whole)
• 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
• 12 fresh dates – stones removed

Everything got thrown into my trusty food processor:

And then blitzed for a good couple of minutes:

Until the oil from the nuts was released and the ingredients started to look like cake mix:

This was then tipped into a plastic food container:

Before being placed in the fridge over night, ready for munching the next day. How simple is that?

The real proof of course will be in the tasting and so I am taking it into work for the connoisseurs to give me their verdict (and trust me the competition is hot in the office)…