Lime Banana Chocolate Cream Pie

After Matthew Kenney, Level 1 was finished, I hopped on the plane to route via Denver to San Francisco to visit friends and spend Thanksgiving with them. My friend Yelena is the co-owner of the Arizmendi Bakery and she organized a Thanksgiving Dinner for all the workers and friends, to which I was invited. Of course, the requirement was to make something raw, ideally a dessert, but all I had was a food processor, so I came up with a simple nice recipe for a lime banana chocolate cream pie that you can easily replicate at home with minimal equipment. Here is the recipe, I hope you enjoy it as much as the workers and friends of the Arizmendi Bakery :-)

Lime Banana Chocolate Cream Pie
(makes two normal size 9 inch pie pans)

Crust
3 cups walnuts
1 cup cacao nibs
½ t salt
2 t vanilla powder (or extract)
4 T coconut butter
10 to 15 medjol dates

In a food processor with the s-blade, food process first the walnuts, salt, vanilla and cacao nibs, so they are still chunky. Then one by one, add the dates and little by little the coconut butter, until the dough sticks together and can be pressed into a pie pan.

Banana cream filling
5 bananas
juice from 2 limes
zest from 1 lime
1 inch piece ginger, microplaned
1 pinch salt
1 t vanilla
2-3 T coconut butter

Process all ingredients in a food processor until smooth and creamy

Chocolate cream filling
2 avocados
1/3 – 1/2 cup water
1 cup cacao powder
2 T coconut butter
4 dates
2-3 T honey
1 t vanilla
1 pinch salt

Process all ingredients in a food processor until smooth and creamy

Assembly:

Pour the banana filling first and then add dollups of the chocolate cream filling. Use a chop stick or back of a spoon to swirl the chocolate filling into the banana filling. Don´t swirl too much to avoid the two from blending together completely.

Sprinkle with some dried shredded coconut, if you like and let set in the freezer for about 4 hours or in the fridge overnight before serving.

Young Coconuts - the food of the gods

There has been extended silence on this blog but it has all been for a good reason: traveling, training, self-development and back I am, full to the rim with new inspirations from recent travels to Thailand, Singapore and Bali. All of these places are little heavens for raw foodies and not at last because of one particular exotic fruit: Fresh Young Coconut. Young Coconuts are an amazing superfood. Not only do they contain up to half a liter of thirst quenching, tasty water, which at the same time is full of electrolytes and therefore a natural isotonic; it's actually the closest naturally existing liquid to the human blood, for which reason it is often used for blood transformations in developing countries if there is no blood from the correct type available. Even the Food and Agriculture Organization fought for a patent in 2000 to market coconut water as a new isotonic sports drink. Check this article on 7 benefits of coconut water.

But let's take a look at it's use in the culinary arts. The thin and soft flesh that you can scoop out from the coconut once you emptied out all the water and openend it up, can be used in a variety of dishes due to it's wonderful consistency and delicate subtle flavour, like in this coconut ceviche that I prepared a few days ago. In this dish, the texture of the coconut reminds of the texture of a squid (ceviche traditionally is a Mexican seafood dish).

The other day I also used the flesh in a Raw Version of Phad Thai, the traditional Thai noodle dish. Thinly sliced, the meat of the coconut gives the impression of the rice noodles the dish is usually made of.
There is plenty of other wonderful ways to work with young coconuts. A very simple thing is to just blend the meat and the coconut water and you have the best coconut milk ever! Then you can turn it into a sweet smoothie / milk adding the sweeteners of choice or into a savoury soup adding some lime, chilli, curry,... get creative. You can also make a nice coconut yoghurt by just blending the meat with a little coconut water, salt and lemon or lime juice. The water is sweet and tangy and little bit sour at the same time and therefore lends it this yogurty taste.
One of my favourite things I prepared these days are crèpes. Vegan, raw crèpes!! All the French out there, please forgive me now for misusing and abusing this reserved word...
The combination of cashew nuts and the flesh of the young coconut together with some other ingredients gives a perfect crèpes dough that you can fill with anything you would fill a normal crèpe. Here, I made a blueberry jello and a white creamy almond yoghurt using some of the coconut water, and drizzled the whole thing with a dark raw chocolate sauce. Blueberries and chocolate... delicious!!
However, my favourite, I actually invented two nights ago after coming home, hungry for something sweet. I pulled out a crèpes from the fridge, spread some tahini on it, then slivered pieces of frozen bananas on top, squeezed a few drops of lime over the whole thing, sprinkled it with raw chocolate nibs, rolled it all up and it was simply perfect! sweet crèpes, bitter nutty tahini, sweet pure banana "ice cream", a tang of lime, and the chocolate crunch turned out to be a fantastic combination. Try it out for yourself!

And in my next blog post, you will also find out, where I got all the coconuts in Berlin from to experiment with :-)

Raw Desserts: The Sweetest Art

Preparing raw desserts has become one of my favorite activities when experimenting in my raw food kitchen. Not only are they just divinely delicious, but the mere process of creating them absolutely fascinates me. Creating a raw dessert is truly an art. Going through the ingredients list of this beautiful strawberry shortcake I made a few days ago (inspired from The Sunny Raw Kitchen: Recipe of the Week: Strawberry Shortcake), you would not think it is possible to achieve such consistencies like a fluffy nutty cake base and a moussy butter or whipped cream topping. The ingredients are as simple as dried nuts, dried fruit, fresh fruit, coconut butter and agave sirup!

This is pretty much the same for most other vegan raw desserts, like this amazing raw chocolate mousse. The consistency is just like a regular one, airy, fluffy, light and the taste: heavenly, pure, dark bitter chocolate due to using 100% pure raw cacao, one of the most amazing and nutritious super foods on the planet. In its raw form, cacao has 6 times more antioxidants than blueberries, is the highest source of magnesium and has plenty of other benefits.

Not only do raw desserts taste even more delicious than some of their conventional relatives (like this raw version of a pumpkin pie), they are so much more nutritious, and better for your health, completely free from wheat, gluten and dairy and having lower effects on your blood sugar level, they can even be enjoyed by people with severe food intolerances, which become more and more common these days.

Most of these deserts I prepared recently are inspired by San Francisco's raw dessert heaven Café Gratitude. In fact, it was that raw cheesecake during my first meal at Café Gratitude a few years ago, that convinced me of the raw food trail and made we want to become a raw food chef. I just could not believe that there was a non-dairy, sugar free, vegan and raw version of this New York classic that could satisfy me at least as much as the original.

And here I am, 4 years later, making the same pies I once thought were such magical creations. Cheesecake is still one of my favourites. so this blueberry chocolate cheesecake from David Wolfe's book Naked Chocolate also hit the spot. A tangy cream from blueberries, raw chocolate and cashew nuts that tastes just like blueberry cream cheese!

Also this hazelnut chocolate cream pie was an amazing combination of nuts, seeds and chocolate. A hazelnutty crust, filled with a chocolate hazelnut mixture with the consistency of a moussy pudding, topped with a meringue made from coconut, vanilla and lemon.

I liked all of them, but with spring time and the first strawberries in season, the strawberry shortcake was my absolute favorite. The next experiment will be a mango mousse pie! I can't wait to power on my new VitaMix blender. Without this professional power machine, these desserts would not be possible. Due to its shape and the tamper, you can turn anything into a cream and even a thick cream like the one needed for a cheesecake is possible with this power blender. I haven't tried to blend my Iphone yet, but the comparable KTec blender apparently does. Check it out on YouTube :-)

Is it a brownie, a deformed truffle, tiramisu...?

The question of last nights wonderful dinner party at my neighbours Michael and Philipp was: What is it? A brownie? A deformed truffle? A chocolate cake? A raw tiramisu? ... Well, it started off with the idea of trying to copy this wonderful walnut cherry and chocolate confection that I had for desert at Alive! in San Francisco. Friday night at 11pm, I suddenly was hit by an obsession to give it a try. So I threw some soaked walnuts, soaked dates, figs, cacao powder and nibs and some orange zest into the food processor. Not having the right powerful machine yet, the consistency first turned out way too gritty. And also way too sweet. So I let it run for a while longer. And I had added too much date soak water at some point, so it was getting too soft for being a brownie like consistency. I started forming truffles and rolling then in cacao. Tasting them, however, didn't convince me. So at this point (it was 1 am), I just put the whole bowl into the fridge and meditated over it in my dreams...

Next morning, I had it. I threw the whole thing into the more powerful blender, added some cashews, some melted down cacao paste and vanilla coconut cream, cold pressed coffee, lecithin, salt, lemon juice and inca berries, which took away the overly sweet taste of the figs and dates, brought out the chocolate and gave it a beautiful fruity note. I spread it into a casseruole and topped it with some runny cashew vanilla coconut cream made from cashews, vanilla coconutbutter, salt, agave and water. Et voilà:

The result was a delicious little caky, brownie, truflly cream something that had great success and everyone was quite surprised to learn that raw food does not have to mean munching on a dry carrot. We couldn't figure out the name thing.

But it doesn't matter, does it? Let's call it the Incan Chocolate Square? Or the truffly balive chocolate mousse cake?

It's all good, it was a chocolaty, fruity, nutty, creamy delight and everyone was happy and convinced that raw foods it something worth looking into a little closer :-)

A few other highlighs of this weeks kitchen experiments were the spaghetti bolognese and the Asian Kale and Eggplant Curry with dehydrated flax crackers. No time now to into details, since I have to get ready for my next trip: To Thailand. I am going to one of my favourite retreats The Sancutary on the island Koh Phangan to do an advanced course in Ayurvedic Yoga Massage. So watch out for some exotic travel reports from the Far East soon!

I promised to give you more on chocolate and I kept my promise, and there will be more, be sure of that!

Sawadee. And Hail to Chocolate :-)