Tag Archives: raw

Brainfood!!! Mango-Energie Bar

26 Friday Jul 2013

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So… I’m writing my exams right now. And learning really, really makes me hungry. It’s almost like I feel how my brain burns all that calories! But as storebought raw fruit bars are quite expansive, I usually make my own. The possibilities are endless, almost any combination of dried fruit and nuts will work.

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And this one was really delicious, so even though this recipe was not meant for the blog in first place, after tasting the first bar I decided to share them with you!

RAW Mango Energie Bars

  • 1 cup dates
  • 1 /2 cup dried (soft) apples
  • 1/4 cup dried mango, chopped
  • 1/2 cup walnuts
  • 2 Tbsp golden flaxseed
  • 1/2 cup (raw) oats

Coarsely grind the walnuts and oats in your blender or food processor. Set aside. Mix dates, apples and mango in your blender or food processor until they stick together. (I use my blender. If you pulse, it works pretty well!) Add ground oat-nut mixture and flaxseed and mix until you have a formable dough. Form bars (or balls or whatever you want! ;) ) with your hands. Enjoy!

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My little friends agreed that they’d make a great for a bike tour, too. =D
And as this was meant to be brainfood for me, I just had to add walnuts. First of all, they look like little brains. And secondly, I have a persian friend who always tells me to eat a lot of walnuts when I’m writing my exams. And with all the omega 3 fatty acids, which are good for your brain, you can’t go wrong with walnuts.

But the most important fact about this bar: It’s unbelievable fruity thanks to the mangos! Yummy!

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RAW Strawberry Rhubarb Popsicles

16 Sunday Jun 2013

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It’s getting warm! Summer is almost here – even where I live!

And that means… it’s time for ice cream! Oh, I have so many ice cream ideas, I’m really glad that we finally have the right temperatures for ice cream and popsicles!
Actually, rhubarb is a spring vegetable. Yeah, that’s right, it’s a vegetable, not a fruit. And a pretty healthy one, too. If this was a health blog, I could tell you a lot about it’s benefits, like the high amounts of dietary fiber, it’s vitamin B, A and K content, antioxidants and calcium. But this is just a playful blog, so you don’t even have to let people know that they are eating a healthy treat…

… cause nobody will notice. They taste that good!

Popsicle_1

Strawberry Rhubarb Popsicles

  • 2 cups strawberries
  • 1 small stalk rhubarb
  • 3 tbsp almond or coconut milk
  • optional: 1/2 cup xylit (or regular sugar) for the sweet tooth… *

Mix all the ingredients in your blender. Fill in popsicle forms and freeze for about 6h or overnight.
Enjoy!

* NOTE: If you add sugar/xylit or not depends on your own sweet tooth and on the sweetness of your strawberries which varies a lot! When you try the mixture, it should be slightly over sweetened, because the frozen mixture always tastes slightly less sweet.

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And you have to hurry up to make this treat – rhubarb season is almost over!!! It usually lasts until the end of june.

Popsicle

RAW Strawberry Cream Dream Pie

10 Friday May 2013

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Click here for German version! / Deutsche Version
Time for another RAW dessert!

After trying to make homemade granola yesterday, I am convinced that I’m  much more gifted at making raw food desserts and meals or baked muffins and cake and… actually anything. Anything that’s not granola.

Everything turned out great – the rhubarb muffins (yummy!), the caramelized green asparagus (double yummy!)… but the granola, the one thing I was most excited about, just didn’t turn out the way I imagined it. So much for granola.

I like muffins and raw desserts better, anyway! ;)

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There is our beauty. I guess the name says it all…!

I especially like the new kind of dough i tried this time. It’s based on banana instead of dates!

Strawberry Dream Cream Pie_6

Strawberry Cream Dream Pie 
yields about three tartlets 

For the dough:

  • one banana
  • one part oat flour
  • one part ground almonds
  • optional: sliced banana or strawberries
  • optional: pinch of salt

For the cream:

  • about 10 medium sized strawberries
  • 6 tablespoons coconut butter
  • 5-8 dates (depending on your sweet tooth)
  • pinch of vanilla or 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • pinch of salt
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • optional: 1/2 tsp psyllium
  • coconut oil for greasing the pan

For the dough puree the banana in a mixer (or with a hand blender). Stir in oat flour and ground almonds, until you have a smooth dough. Grease three tartlet pans with coconut oil and line the pans with dough. Put in the refrigerator.
For the cream, mix all the ingredients in a high speed blender until smooth. Put sliced banana or strawberries on the dough. Pour the cream into the prepared pans and chill in the refrigerator over night (NO need to freeze!).

You can freeze the tartlets, of course. But you don’t have to! The slice I cut (you see it in the pic above) was beautiful even though the cake was not frozen!

Strawberry Dream Cream Pie_7I did one version with banana slices at the button, one with strawberries and one with cream only. I loved them all.

Strawberry Dream Cream Pie_4My little friend likes the strawberry slices version best. I guess we might get some trouble. He doesn’t know yet that I just don’t share strawberries! They are my favorite fruit!!!

Strawberry Dream Cream Pie_5I actually used two tartlet pans and one miniature spring pan, same size as the tartlet pans. I love small pies, they are so cute! You can have a pie on your own!
Of course, you could also make one big pie or tarte.

Oh, and by the way… that miniature pan is from a toy store. Yup. Toy stores are great. You can buy lego AND miniature kitchen tools! Support your local toy store! ;)

RAW Carrot Cake with Mango-Creamcheese Frosting

13 Saturday Apr 2013

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The best raw cake I’ve ever tasted.

Raw Vegan Carrot Cake Piece

 

And I’ve made and tasted quite a few by know.
As they usually consist of dried fruit and nuts, they tend to be quite dense and sometimes, they make you feel kind of heavy.

This one is different. It’s still a raw cake, it’s still not an exact copy of the original (anyway, if I want to taste a baked carrot cake, I’ll just bake one!). But it is not as dense and heavy as most raw cakes out there! It’s easier on the stomach and tastes great – what else could you wish for!

Another thing I love about this cake: The frosting is without cashews. Cashew-free frosting!!! I like cashews, that’s not it. But I like to change up things every once in a while.

 

Raw Carrot Cake_3

 

There you go – the princess is cutting the cake!

RAW Carrot Cake 

For the cake: 

  • 1 large carrot
  • 3/4 cup buckwheat flour
  • 1/2 cup dates
  • 1/2 cup dried pineapple or apricots
  • 1/4 cup coconut shreds
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • optional: 1/4 teaspoon cardamom
  • optional: dash of ground gloves, nutmeg, allspice and salt

For the frosting: 

  • 1/4 cup coconut butter
  • about 4 big pieces dried mango (of course, the amount depends on the size of your mango pieces. If the flavor is not intense enough, blend in more mango!)
  • 1/8 tsp ground vanilla
  • 1 tsp coconut oil
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • water as needed (start with 1/4 cup)
  • optional: dash of salt

For the cake: cut carrots into small chunks. Then throw all ingredients, including the carrots, in your food processor or high speed blender and pulse until it sticks together. Use your hands to for a round cake! You could also use a spring pan or tartlet pans, too. However, I kept it simple and just formed small, round cakes by hand.

For the frosting: Blend all the ingredients in you high speed blender until smooth, adding just enough water to create a smooth and creamy (and delicious!) frosting.

Assembly: That’s totally up to you! You could make a two layer cake, like I did. Put frosting on the first cake base, add the second one and cover the whole cake with frosting. You could also use your icing bag.

Raw carrot cake

 

“naked” carrot cakes with just a little mango creamcheese icing. Honestly, that icing is divine…

Raw Vegan Carrot Cake

Oh, of course, a princess always gets what she wants. Here’s her piece of the cake!

 

 

 

 

 

 

RAW Mango Cheesecake

05 Tuesday Mar 2013

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Deutsche Version / German version

Okay, I am kind of proud of this one. I just recently got into raw “baking”. I’m not a raw foodist, as you can see on this blog, but I love play around with raw food preparation! For me, it’s a really creative approach that offers so many new possibilities and new flavors! Some of them are worth sharing…

Like this one.

mango cheesecake

RAW Mango Cheesecake. It does not only look delicious, it really is! Don’t compare raw cakes to baked treats. They are not an imitation – they are different, a whole new thing. See them as an alternative or as a very tasty addition to your diet!
Raw cakes are usually quite rich – you might want to cut smaller pieces than you’d do with a regular cake.

RAW Mango Cheesecake

RAW Mango Cheesecake

 Ø about 20cm / 8 inch

For the crust:

  • 3/4 cup (about 100g) pitted dates
  • about 1/2 -3/4 cup nuts or seeds (I used sesame seeds and almonds)
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • Pinch of salt

For the filling:

  • 3/4 cup (100g) cashews 
  • 4-5 pieces dried mango (my pieces more rather big, use more if your pieces are rather small)
  • 4 tbsp coconut butter
  • 1/2 cup (about 50g) xylit (or sweetener to taste)
  • 1/4 tsp powdered vanilla
  • pinch of salt
  • 1/2 – 3/4 (about 125ml)  cup water

Crust: Either grease your pan with coconut oil or like it with baking paper. Put nuts / seeds in a food processor and mix until coarsely ground. Add the other ingredients and mix until combined. (Add more dates of the dough is to dry and add more nuts if it’s too moist. It’s hard to give exact amounts here cause it all depends on the moisture of your dates!) Put the dough in a baking pan (Ø about 20cm / 8 inch), form the crust.

Filling: Put all the ingredients in a blender and mix! You might want to soak the cashews before blending of your blender is not that strong. Add more water if needed. Pour the cream into the prepared crust. Lick off the spatulas and spoons you used. (This step is essential. DON’T skip ;) ) Put in the refrigerator over night or until the cream firms up.

raw mango cheesecake

Yummy! When a friend taste-tested the cake, he was like “Wow… this is really… cheesy. It’s like cheesecake…”
Even though I’d definitelly not say that this is a one to one cheesecake alternative,… the cashews definitelly yield a cheese flavor. And the mango coconut combo fits the cake really well. Even though I almost had the whole cake for myself, it did not last long until it was gone… hey, I am writing exams. I need brain food! And it seems like the little guy in the pic (no, he was not the test-taster) feels the same about this cake.

raw mango cheesecake

You can freeze the leftovers, too. You might also find the frozen cake easier to cut (even though I had no problems cutting the cake when I left it in the refrigerator over night). Freezing the cake is especial great, when you are making a raw cake for just one or two people. You can eat the frozen cake straight from the fridge… I promise, it’s the best ice-cream cake I ever had!

Magic Instant Pizza Crust – RAW

08 Thursday Nov 2012

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RAWmazing.

(yeah, I know – that’s an old one…)

I always thought I’d never make a raw pizza. For the same reason I’d never make raw bread or even a raw quiche. I recently stumbled upon a recipe for a raw quiche: It took more then 24h to make it, when you count the time for dehydration. That’s just not for me… I am a little… impatient, let’s just leave it like that.

But then… there was the idea to try an instant crust. I didn’t think it would really work… And I was surprised when I liked it even better than a dehydrated pizza crust! It’s a little more moist and not like a cracker!

I am in love with the simplicity of this recipe.

It’s magic. You see? My little friend has been working on that recipe… uncooking everything. And in the end, there was my first homemade raw pizza!

 

Magic Instant Pizza Crust

  • 1 cup sunflower seeds (or 1 1/4 cups almonds)
  • 1 cup flax seeds
  • 1 tsp dried oregano and basil
  • 1/4 tsp see salt
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 3-5 tbsp water, as needed

Grind the sunflower seeds and flaxseeds until powdered. It does not necessary have to be very fine powder, feel free to leave it a little more coarse. I like the texture. Mix in herbs, salt oil and water and needed to create a dough you can knead without sticking to your hands.
Form a circle, add tomato sauce and all veggies you love. I love to use avocado as my “cheese”, of course, you can use any vegan cheese you want, like raw nut cheese or any other vegan cheese.
Voila, that’s homemade RAW Pizza crust without a dehydrator! It’s that easy!

In case you don’t have the possibility to grind nuts and seeds, just use store bought almond meal and flax meal (Flax- or Leinmehl, in German Reformhäusern or Bioläden). You’ll still get a delicious raw pizza crust!

Of course it doesn’t taste one-to-one like a cooked pizza crust! The mouthfeel is completely different – but it’s the idea and the spices that count. It’s fun to make and delicious – give it a try! Even if you make the raw crust, you could still add cooked tomato sauce. Just saying. (There are great recipes for raw tomato sauce, too, if you want to try it!)

Mini Pumpkin Pies – no bake

28 Sunday Oct 2012

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Make it small. I like small sized food. Small cookies = more cookies. Small cupcakes = more cupcakes.

Small pies = more pies!!!

And you have a whole pie to yourself… I think that’s great. Plus it’s no bake, so these pies are not only really cute, but also fast and easy to make. Could you ask for anything more?
Oh, and by the way… I think pumpkins are the only reason why fall has a right to exist at all. (You have to know that I don’t really like any season but summer. And yes, I know, I live in a very bad spot concerning my weather preference…).

Come on, they are cute!

The filling is rather a pumpkin pudding, or a pumpkin cream. But it’s one of the most delicious thing I had lately. If you add some corn starch, you could even use this cream as a filling for baked pumpkin pie.

For the crust: It’s raw crust, made from dried fruit, nuts and oats. You could actually use any kind of nut and dried fruits like dates, figs, apricots… I just used what I happened to have in the house. Feel free to use whatever you have on hand!

Mini Pumpkin Pies

  • 100g (1/2 cup) raisins
  • 80g (1/2 cup) almonds
  • 50g (1/2 cup) rolled oats
  • cinnamon
  • 200g (one can) pumpkin puree
  • 3-4 Tbsp Maple Syrup
  • 175g (6 oz or half a package) silken firm tofu
  • additional sweetener to taste
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp ginger and cardamon
  • dash of salt, nutmeg and cloves

For the crust, combine the raisins, almonds rolled outs and a dash of cinnamon in your food processor (or vita-mix like blender). Press the dough into silicon muffin pans are into tartlet  pans. It should look like this:

For the filling, mix pumpkin puree, tofu, maple syrup and spices in your food processor or blender (I used homemade pumpkin puree, but it won’t make a big difference). Taste test and add more sweetener, if you like.
Fill the pumpkin cream into the crust and you’re ready to enjoy miniature pumpkin pies!

Spider, pink flower, bat. Nothing wrong here!

Trick or treat…

Great, “This is Halloween” is stuck in my head right now! I guess I will have to watch the movie some time soon… eating mini pumpkin pies and thinking of other Halloween food.

Happy Halloween!

Do you go to a Halloween Party and will you dress up?

Simple Apple Pie Smoothie

21 Sunday Oct 2012

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I never expected it… but this smoothie really taste like apple pie filling! It’s fresh, raw, foamy, yummy. The dates yield a delicious caramel flavor and sweetness. The almonds make it extra creamy and perfect.

I made this so often for breakfast this week. Seems to be my favorite right now. Another great part: It’s not pricey! Apples are the seasonal fruit right now, at my grocery store, it’s the freshest and cheapest thing I can get.

But what I like best about this smoothie: It’s so easy! I usually have all the ingredients at hand. You only need one kind of fruit! Just apples, no more.  And you won’t believe how delicious it is until you tried!

Apple Pie Smoothie
one big Smoothie

  • 2 apples, cut into quarters
  • 1/8 cup almond (about one hand full)
  • about 5 dates
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 cup ice cubes
  • 1/4 cup water or as needed
  • optional: some oats or flaxseed – make it a breakfast!

But everything in your blender, ice cubes first. Add as much water as needed for desired consistence. Blend – and enjoy! If you like your smoothie even sweeter, you can add some stevia.

I put some oats and flax seed in my smoothie as a breakfast – the oats make a great “pie crust”. You could also crumble some graham cracker on top of your smoothie. Or decorate it with some cream and cinnamon!

Chocolate “Rocher Mousse” – or cup cream!

26 Wednesday Sep 2012

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You know Ferrero Rocher? Those golden balls with the hazelnut in the center? (For smarty pants: rocher is French for rock).

I always wondered who cared for the crispy outside anyway… the cream is what matters! Very good message: You can have all the cream for yourself. It’s vegan, raw and healthy. It doesn’t taste vegan, raw or healthy (don’t ask me what vegan, raw or healthy actually tastes like… but you know, sometimes you serve something made from whole wheat and people tell you it tastes healthy. Most of the time, it’s not a compliment).

It’s easy and quick, too.

Do I have to say more?

Thinking about it… I guess this is cup cream. Hey, there are cup cakes, too. Old story. Now it’s time for cup cream!

Chocolate Rocher Mousse 

  • 1 large, ripe avocado
  • 2-3 tbsp cocoa powder
  • 2-3 tsp cane sugar
  • 1-2 tsp agave syrup
  • 3 tbsp chopped hazelnuts
  • dash of salt

Mash the avocado (I just used a fork, to special tools here!) and mix in the cocoa, cane sugar, agave syrup, hazelnuts and salt. Serve in a cup (otherwise it’s no cup cream, you know…). Decorate with chopped hazelnuts.

Smile! It’s chocolate!
Did you ever think of using this cream as a spread? I put some of it on a slice of bread – similar to nutella! Yummy!

I can tell you, it’s always a mess when legos are stealing food…

Summer in a bowl – Mango Ice Cream (RAW)

06 Thursday Sep 2012

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The last days of summer – time to enjoy some more ice cream!

Okay, actually… According to my very own definition summer is already over where I live. Oh well. You can still fetch it back to your plate bowl!

 

This is the kind of ice cream we enjoyed most this summer. Maybe I will even love this in winter – we’ll see!
One part I really love about it: You use dried mango instead of fresh! Just stock some dried mango and you’re fine! It’s that easy…

It’s super creamy, raw and does not contain bananas! As I mentioned before – I love bananas, but I don’t want every treat and dessert to have a banana flavor.

Last days of summer Mango Ice Cream 

  • 2 cups (300g)  ice cubes
  • half a carrot (medium sized)
  • 1 nectarine, halved
  • about 10 peaces of dried mango (50g or 1,7 oz)
  • 2 tbsp agave syrup OR 15 drops stevia (or sweetener of choice)

Put everything in your heavy duty blender (I used a vita-mix) in the  order they are listed. Use your tamper and blend until smooth (it will take about 1-2 minutes). Done. Serve immediately. Enjoy!

Yes, I sneaked in some carrot – it will yield a beautiful color and I promise – you won’t taste it!

 

As long as there’s hot tea and warm blankets – I bet I’ll still love this when winter is here!