Monday, September 24, 2012

Decadence on a Monday


A jar of molasses does not travel well on it’s side. 

I know this now, but when I left Cork and packed it on it’s side, in my plastic box of baking ingredients, I didn’t.  

This was the result.  A gift really…on cleaning up the mess I discovered that quite a few packets of dried fruit were out of date and thankfully chucking them out saved me from cleaning molasses off their packets.  Narrow escape.  That task complete, I was inspired me to make something sweet.

I borrowed the recipe from Susan Jane White, a nutritionist in Ireland who creates the yummiest food, always keeping in mind food intolerances and sugar levels.  So the below recipe is a version of her Raw Cacao Brownies but doctored a bit, as I didn’t have everything specified in my dwindling box of goodies.  These are dead easy to make and full of nutrients – the nuts provide oodles of B Vitamins, Vitamin E, Calcium, Magnesium, Manganese, Iron, fiber & essential fats as well as tummy filling protein.  There's buckets of stress busting magnesium in the cacao powder and a lovely balance of electrolytes from the salt.  One of the beauties of this treat is that it doesn't have lots of refined flour, processed sugar and weird flavourings and preservatives as so many shop bought treats do.  As well as that, it is fit to bursting with goodness, usually removed from the raw ingredients used in chocolate or sweet offering in the shops.  A decadent treat that is actually good for you, wow!

What you’ll need:
½ cup of walnuts
½ cup of hazlenuts
Pinch of Himalayan Crystal Salt
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 dsp agave syrup
5 dates (soaked in water as they weren’t all that sticky)
4 tbsp raw cacao powder
1 tbsp normal unalkalised cocoa powder
50g or so of dark chocolate

Put everything except the dark chocolate in a blender or food processor and blitz until it starts to come together.  Susan Jane suggests you stop blitzing as soon as it starts to make a ball, otherwise you’ll overdo it.  I had to add the agave syrup, as it wasn’t coming together at all.  Perhaps due to my dates not being super sticky, so start without the agave and see how you get on.
Once the mix has come together, remove small lumps of the mix and roll into ping-pong sized balls between your hands.  You will get a bit messy, but you also get to lick your hands clean, so it’s worth it.

Poke a little hole in each ball and smoosh it together if it starts to fall apart.

Once that’s done melt the chocolate over a simmering bowl of water.  Once melted, put a small dollop of chocolate into each ball.  Susan Jane added probiotic yoghurt to the chocolate, but Mountain Man had finished off the yoghurt with breakfast, so I figured dark chocolate on it’s own would suffice.  Yum, it did…

If you have a little chocolate left over, as I did and some strawberries in the fridge, I’d suggest dipping the strawberries into the chocolate.  It would be a shame to waste it after all!



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