Today my chocolate pudding was particularly good, very creamy, so I thought I’d share what went in it:

• about 100g hemp seeds, soaked overnight
• dried fruit soaked overnight: small handful of goji berries and currents, 1 fig, 1 apricot, 1 prune
• 2 tablespoons of cacao nibs
• 3 tablespoons sesame seeds
• 1 tsp pollen grains
• 1 tsp coconut oil
  
• 1 tsp cacao powder
• 1/2 tsp maca powder
• 5 walnut halves
• 2 bananas

I’m not going to type out the method again, just look at one of my previous chocolate pudding posts, the only thing I did differently was that I ground up the cacao nibs, sesame seeds and walnuts on their own first (in my Vitamix Blender) before adding everything else.

Mmm, I just made the most delicious ‘milkshake’ ever. The ingredients were:

• approx 125g of coconut ‘meat’ (about half a brown coconut)
• 3 dates, soaked
• 1 tablespoon raw cacao powder
• 1 tsp lucuma powder

First I chopped the coconut meat up and put it into the blender with the soak water from the dates and more water to cover the coconut. I blended this up and then squeezed through a sprout bag to get a nice ‘milk’.

I then put this ‘milk’ back into the blender with the dates and cacao powder and whizzed it up. The lucuma was an unplanned addition, it wasn’t quite sweet enough so I added the lucuma which was perfect. Another option would be to add one more date, and something I’m going to try soon, no dates and more lucuma.

I made this last night with 4 tablespoons of cacao nibs instead of cacao powder. I put the nibs in the blender before the ‘milk’ and ground them up first, which resulted in an intensely delicious chocolate flavour, but it was very ‘bitty’ as the ground nibs were not fine enough to dissolve into the ‘milk’.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been experimenting with making raw chocolates, today I actually measured the ingredients so I could tell you what I did and can improve for next time.

Ingredients for the chocolate:

• 50g cacao butter
• 3 tablespoons cacao powder
• 2 tablespoons lucuma powder

Flavourings:

• currants
• hazelnuts
• cacao nibs
• pollen grains

Method:

First I melted the cacao butter. I grated it to make it easier to melt, placed in in a dish and then placed this dish in a larger bowl of nearly boiling water. I had to change the hot water several times as it cooled. (Another way of doing this is with a double boiler on a stove, but I don’t have one of those yet.)  When the cacao butter had completely liquefied I added the cacao powder and lucuma, a tablespoon at a time, stirring it in until dissolved.

I then poured the liquid chocolate into moulds and then added the flavourings.  I’m guessing that there is an optimal time to wait before adding stuff, otherwise it all sinks to the bottom.  I ground the hazelnuts up first and did a hazelnut and current flavour.  Once the chocs were made, I put them in the fridge to set before eating.
Next time I will try using more cacao powder, and probably more lucuma also.  The chocolates with currents were great because the currents were an additional sweetener, the others could have been a little sweeter.

I also tried making a chocolate coated Brazil nut, but will have to work on a method of getting an even coat!

We have a pear tree in the garden so I’ve had lots of ripe pears recently. Yesterday I made a pear crumble:

For the topping I used hazelnuts, soaked sunflower seeds, soaked pumpkin seeds, soaked sesame seeds, dates and a few cacao nibs. I put everything into a food processor and processed until a good crumble topping formed.

For the filling, I chopped the pears and put in to the food processor with a few tablespoons of lucuma powder. I processed on pulse briefly so that the mixture was still a little chunky.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may know that I have chocolate pudding for breakfast everyday. Well, today I fancied a change and made white chocolate pudding.

The following ingredients are soaked overnight:

• 1 cup hemp seeds
• half a cup mixture of walnuts, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds
• handful of goji berries, handful of currents, 2 dried figs, 2 dried apricots

The rest of the ingredients:

• 2 bananas
• a small piece of coconut meat
• 1 tsp coconut oil
• orange zest
• 2 tablespoons of raw cacao butter
• 1/2 tsp maca powder

First, drain and rinse the hemp seeds and then blend with the soak water from the dried fruit and a bit more water. Strain through a muslin bag or cheesecloth to make hemp milk. Then put all the rest of the ingredients in the blender (drain and rinse the nuts and seeds first) along with the hemp milk and blend until smooth. I usually stir in a tablespoon of flax oil for my omega 3’s before serving. Mmm, delicious.

I expanded the mushroom sauce recipe from a couple of days ago and did this:

• a large handful of mushrooms
• approx 30g of sea spaghetti, soaked for 20 mins
• half a red pepper
• a spring onion
• an avocado
• small piece of chili

I put everything including the soak water into the blender and blended until smooth. I served with mixed wild greens and grated carrot.

A bit later I made a very simple chocolate hemp milk drink:

• a cup of hemp seeds, soaked and drained
• 7 dates, soaked for about 1 hour
• a teaspoon of raw chocolate powder

I made hemp milk with the hemp seeds and the soak water from the dates (blend and then strain, I use a sprout bag to strain the hemp milk through). Then put the hemp milk back into the blender with the dates and choc powder and blend until you have a smooth chocolate milk.