Chocolate Cherries Ice Cream

Courtesy of Beautiful Living Food in Vermont http://beautifullivingfood.blogspot.com/

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of cashew pieces. (soak them for 4 or 5 hours)


• 1/4 cup of packed, pitted dates cut in half. (soak for 30 minutes )


• 1/2 cup of reserve water from soaking the dates


• 1 1/4 cups of pitted and coarsely chopped fresh cherries


• 1 cup of firm young Thai coconut meat (I used one large coconut)


• 1 cup of coconut water


• 1/2 cup and 1 tablespoon of agave syrup


• 1 scraped vanilla bean


• 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract (or 2 vanilla beans)


• 2 pinches of sea salt


• 1 tablespoon of coconut oil


• 1 capful of cherry extract (Boyajian brand)


• 2-3 tablespoons of raw cacao powder

Add all the ingredients into the Vitamix and blend until smooth. Pour into a container and chill in the fridge until nice and cold (several hours or overnight).

Pour the mixture into the ice cream maker (according to the manufacturer’s directions). It takes about 30 minutes to reach a nice soft serve consistency. Stick ice cream into the freezer for a couple hours for a firmer texture that you can scoop with an ice cream scooper.

"Timbit" truffles

Courtesy of Gone Raw http://goneraw.com/recipe/timbit-truffles

Ingredients:

Truffles:

• 3 cups of pecans or walnuts
• 20 pitted dates (make sure they are soft, like Medjool dates)
• 2/3 cup cacao or carob powder
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 1 pinch of salt (optional, I don't tend to use it)

Decorations:

• Coconut shavings (I put them in the food processor to make them very fine)
• Pecan or walnut powder (I just save some from when I process them to make the truffles)
• Cacao or carob powder
• Carob chips
• Almond butter

Preparation:

1. Place the pecans or walnuts in the food processor, and process until the powder looks like sand
2. Add the cacao/carob powder, the dates, the vanilla extract and the salt
3. Mix until the ingredients have formed a dough
4. Take a small amount of dough and roll it in your hands
5. Decorate your truffles with coconut shavings, pecan/walnut powder, cacao/carob powder, carob chips, or drizzles of almond butter
6. Place your truffles on a plate or platter covered with Saran Wrap (so they don't stick to the plate) and put them in the fridge (for a couple of hours) or freezer (for 30 minutes) until they get a bit firmer.
7. Keep your truffles in the fridge or freezer until you eat them.

Chocolate Cake (with bananas, optional)

Courtesy of Gone Raw http://goneraw.com/recipe/chocolate-cake-bananas-optional
Servings: 6-10

Ingredients:

Crust:

• 200 grams (about 3 cups) almonds
• 5-8 tablespoons cacao powder (or ground cacao nibs)
• 1 pinch of cinnamon
• 1 pinch of salt
• 6-8 medjool dates, pitted, soaked for 10 hours, then purreed without the soaking water

Filling:

• 3 cups cashews, soaked for 10 hours at least
• 2 young coconuts (only the meat)
• 1-2 cups cocoa powder (you can substitute half of it with carob, if you like)
• 8-12 medjool dates, pitted, soaked for 10 hours, then pureed without the soaking water
• about 5 tablespoons cocoa butter or coconut butter (make it soft / liquid through carfully warming it)
• 1 vanilla pod
• 2 bananas

Optional:

• 2 bananas
• coconut flakes

Preparation:

Crust:
Grind the almonds and put all ingredients for the crust in a large bowl. Make a dough with your hands and put it on the bottom of a round cake pan. Put in fridge.

Filling:
1. Grind / Puree the cashews without the water in a Blender
2. Puree the meat of the young coconut without the water
3. Puree the bananas
4. Put all ingredients for the filling in a large bowl and blend it with a blender bar or put everything in a blender if you have a really good one (or a food processor).

The dough should not be liquid. If it is too liquid, add some pureed cashews or some cacao or coconut oil. If it is too hard, add some pureed bananas.
You also have to make sure that the filling is sweet enough. If it is not, add some pureed dates or bananas.

Assembly:
Optional: Slice the 2 bananas and put the slices on the crust, but leave space at the margin.
Then pour the filling over it.
Put in the fridge for a few hours

Before serving, decorate with coconut flakes or any other nice looking raw ingredient.