Orange Chocolate Truffle Treats

I don’t know about you, but I adore chocolate!! I have always loved anything chocolate.  Once while visiting Brussels, I tried chocolate that was SO good that nothing has been the same since. That experience changed me forever.  Since then, I will rather be without chocolate than eat mediocre chocolate! Eating Belgium chocolate is like going for a visit to heaven. 🙂

Good chocolate has a very high content of coco bean, usually more than 70%, whereas some common (popular) brands of chocolate contain very little coco, if any at all.

Today I made some delicious Orange Chocolate Truffle Treats. These are totally healthy – good for you at the same time. They contain no white sugar, no white flour, no butter, no cream, no eggs, but none the less, crazily tasty!  I served them to the kids after school and they devoured them eagerly, no questions asked. The dark chocolate, the nuts, and with a hint of orange, makes these little treats, a divine mouthful. The perfect snack!

Orange Chocolate Truffle Treats

1 can of black beans

200 g of good dark chocolate min 70% coco bean

10 medjool dates

2 table spoons Agave sirup

2 organic oranges

1 cup raw almonds

1/4 cup walnuts

pinch of sea salt

Simply add the almonds to a blender, blend into flour, drain and rinse the black beans, put them in the blender, add 200 g of melted chocolate, grate one orange and add the gratings (rind) to the blender, peel the oranges and add them too, add the dates and the agave syrup, add a pinch of sea salt and blend all the ingredients to a smooth consistency. Roughly chop the walnuts and add them to the chocolate “truffle mix”.

Now on a clean counter pour out some coco and some shredded coconut – now roll the truffle mix into little balls and roll each one in either coco or coconut. Place them on a plate and cover them – put them in the freezer and take them out when you need a special treat. But, allow them to defrost before you bite into them.

VVP- Carrot cake with cranberries and orange, vanilla cream icing, served with orange sauce

Welcome to the famous, amazing, wonderful and incredible – the Virtual Vegan Potluck!

This is it – the day I have been looking forward to for weeks has finally arrived! The Virtual Vegan Potluck is a gathering of more than 100 enthused bloggers, from all over the world, sharing their creative vegan recipes. Maybe you have already been working your way around the virtual vegan potluck – if so, I hope you have enjoyed some wonderful food – appetizers, soups, breads, starters, mains, drinks, and now desserts!  I am so happy I signed up to make dessert! Because….

Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal,

since it will be the last thing your guests will

remember before they pass out all over the table” – William Powel

I love Vegan desserts and in particular Raw food  desserts make my heart beat. Apart from being sinfully delicious, they are nutritious and packed full of goodness! So go for it – eat, indulge, enjoy and be healthier for every bite.

One of my old time favorites – is carrot cake with creme cheese icing!

I have created an almost raw food version of this old time favorite, and I can’t wait to share it with you!

So lets get to it!

Carrot Cake with cranberries topped with an orange, vanilla cream icing, served with orange sauce

3 cups of grated carrots

1 1/2 cup cooked quinoa

2 oranges

1 cup of walnuts

1 cup of oats

10 -12 dates Mojol

2-4 spoons agave

1 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cardamom

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

In a bowl, add the grated carrots and the cooked sprouted quinoa, grate the rind of the oranges, and then add the juice of the oranges. In a blender, blend the walnuts and the oats till it becomes flour-like, and add to the carrots. Add the spices to the bowl and stir well. In a blender put the ingredients from the bowl and add the pitted dates, blend smooth – I needed to do it in two batches. Put it back in the bowl and add the agave and the cranberries.

Put it into a pie pan

Make the  Orange, Vanilla cream icing

2 cups of cashews ( that have been soaked for 2-4 hrs or overnight in the fridge)

1 orange

4 spoons of Agave

1 vanilla pod

Drain the soaked cashews and put them in the blender, add the juice of one freshly squeezed orange, add the agave and scrape out the vanilla bean. Put it in and blend into a smooth cream. Spread it on top of the cake and decorate with walnuts.

Serve with Orange Sauce

1 Orange

2 spoons of Agave

Squeeze the juice of the orange and add agave to make the sauce.

Sorry I had to take a bite and another one and one more …………………. and then tomorrow I will have leftovers for breakfast!

This is my contribution. Thank you for coming to the Virtual Potluck – I am thrilled you came!!

But before I let you go – lets raise our glasses and make a big heartfelt toast to the Virtual Potluck people! – The Virtual Vegan Potluck was initiated and arranged by one of my favorite virtual friends and bloggers, Annie at anunrefinedvegan!

She birthed this idea and made it possible – thank you Annie!! Thank you also to 3 more beautiful virtual friends and bloggers, Somer from Vedged Out  , Lidia from Veganbloggersunite and Jason from Jason and the Veganauts for helping make this event possible. Lots of work went into this – thank you guys you are amazing!!!

… and so the party continues the show goes on and on and on – click forward or backward as you please by clicking the “go forward” – “go back”  images below.

Enjoy and have fun

 

Crispiest Crunchiest no-knead Bread

Okay – I love bread,  I am a bit of a bread-nerd actually. I make it every day – it has become a routine for me to whip it up before I go to bed, plunk it in the fridge overnight or tuck it in on the kitchen counter with a wet cloth on top and kiss it goodnight. Go to sleep, wake up, turn the oven on, make my tea, put the bread in the hot oven, have my shower and ………. voila freshly made warm and delicious bread!!!

But before I share the bread recipe,  I have something really exciting to share!

The 1st of November I will be participating in an awesome event – The Virtual Vegan Potluck!! I participated in one in May this year and it was so much fun! More than 100 wonderful bloggers from all over the world will bring their amazing food creations to the Virtual Potluck table! So stay tuned in – come and visit and join the fun.

I am not vegan, but I enjoy to nourish my body by feeding it lots of plant-based foods, and more plant-based foods than other types of food. The Virtual Vegan Potluck is a great way to get inspired – I promise you – there will be lots of scrumptious recipes.

I will be creating a new dessert. I can reveal that I am making a raw food healthy version of an old (fat) favorite. It will be soft, wild, intense and super delicious. And at the time, I will be in Copenhagen, so it will be created directly from my Danish kitchen in the heart of the old city.

So stay tuned – 1st of November 2012 – and now to the bread!

It is becoming popular to bake bread in an extremely hot oven in a cast iron pot with a lid!  I have been watching these developments for a while, but had never tried it. One small thing was that I didn’t have the pot! Then one day I saw a post from In Pursuit of more – one of my favorite blogs! Shira had made bread so delicious, in a cast iron pot – it was so gorgeously beautiful that bread, that I had to make it. I went straight out, bought a pot and went in the kitchen to make bread. Gosh I could hardly sleep that night – excited to get that bread in the oven!

Let just say it – it became the crispiest, crunchiest bread I have ever tried – it was sooooo good!

Here is my recipe:

2 cups of water

1 teaspoon dried yeast

3 tbs olive oil

2 teaspoon salt

4 cups wheat flour

1 cup rye flour

1/2 cup wheat to work the dough on the counter

In a big bowl – add the water, dissolve the yeast in the water add the olive oil and start adding the flour a little at the time, while constantly stirring,  until you have a  dough.

Cover with a wet cloth and leave it to rest

The longer you raise it the better the bread – so preferably overnight!

For this bread I left it for 4 hours in the bowl, on the kitchen counter. I will show you the difference – later. They both turned out really nice but, the one bread that was left overnight was crispier and had more air holes in the structure.

After the 4 hours – I carefully scooped it out on to a clean counter with 1/2 cup of flour – there I carefully folded it and dusted it with extra flour like this

No kneading needed – cover with a wet cloth and leave to raise for another 2 hours like this

After about an hour and a 1/2, turn the oven on to 450F. Once it has reached the temperature – put the cast iron pot and the lid into the oven. Let them heat up for a 1/2 hr – no need to grease it or oil it, just heat it.

After heating it – carefully – and equipped with what you need so as not to burn yourself, take out the pot – and carefully, carefully place the dough in this extremely hot pot

Put the lid on and put it back in the oven to bake for 35 min. After 35 min. remove the lid and continue baking for another 10 min.

Viola the bread is ready to enjoy!

And, for the more patient cooks:

Here is the bread that I made which had been raising overnight. It was made with just organic wheat flour.

“The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight” – M.F.K. Fischer

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

In Canada, it’s Thanksgiving, a long weekend and I have been baking little Sugar Pumpkins for the famous and traditional pumpkin pies that I will be making this weekend for Thanksgiving dinner.

This afternoon, I thought that an afternoon Chai tea and a homemade cinnamon roll would be something wonderful! And since the sugar pumpkins were standing there – so beautifully, cooling off,  before going in to the pies, I thought, maybe pumpkin would taste really good in cinnamon rolls? And with Chai tea?

I had extra pumpkin, so what the heck. I gave it a try and 2 cups of blended deliciously baked and beautifully orange pumpkin went straight into my cinnamon dough.

These Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls will go in the recipe book – they were so tasty, moist and overly yummy. And they were awesome and perfect with the afternoon Chai tea.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

1 1/4 cup of milk

1 1/2 teaspoon of dry yeast

1/2 cup melted butter

2 cups of baked and blended pumpkin

7 cups of flour + a bit more for rolling the dough out

1/2 cup of raw sugar

1 teaspoon of cardamom

1/2  teaspoon of salt

Gently heat the milk with the butter and let it cool slightly before you add the yeast. Dissolve the yeast in the milk/butter, add the sugar and the salt, add the pumpkin – add the flour – a little at a time while stirring – keep adding flour and stirring til you have a perfect dough, i.e., not too sticky – just so that is leaves your fingers when kneading.

Leave the dough under a wet dishtowel or similar to raise for about an hour.

Now make the filling

1 cup of  butter

1/2 cup of raw sugar

3 teaspoons of cinnamon

Soften the butter and add the sugar and the cinnamon – work it into an even paste to spread on to the dough when it has been rolled out.

When the dough have risen for about an hour, add some flour on a clean counter top and pour out the dough – mix with the extra flour until it doesn’t stick to your fingers.

Roll the dough out thinly

Spread the filling out evenly and thinly

and roll the dough lengthwise.

Cut the rolls about 2″-3″ thick) and place them on baking paper and a baking tray. Leave them to raise again for about 1/2 to 1 hr – bake in an 355 F hot oven for about 12-14 min.

Serve with tea – this afternoon, we had Chai tea. My favorite Chai tea in the whole wide world comes from Sky Tea.

Watch Jeni, one of the founders of Sky Tea make the perfect Chai, her award-winning Masala Chai.

Enjoy!

Wishing everyone happy Thanks Giving, where ever you are!

Weekend bread

There is something really fantastic about the smell of homemade bread. The aroma spreads throughout the house and fills the air with magic, memories of forgotten times.

When you put your house up for sale, they recommend that you bake before showing the house! Why? Because homemade bread and baking oozes of great life style, extra time, comfort, cozy life, family life and the luxury of having time to make bread, homemade bread!

But making bread is easy – it actually doesn’t take much time – once you get into the bread-making-rhythm.

Making a rhythm is really quite simple. For example, before going to bed, I toss the bread together, and put it in the fridge with a wet cloth on top, overnight. It does its stuff while I’m sleeping.

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