Jennifer Cornbleet: I love raw desserts. Raw desserts are so much better for you than the traditional versions, because they are free of white flour, white sugar, saturated fats, diary products and wheat. Ingredients that many people are trying to avoid if you bring a raw desert to a party I guarantee is that the people are really going to appreciate having something to eat that doesn’t have those ingredients in it. But what’s really amazing about raw desserts is how great they taste. And they are so easy to make. In many cases it just takes minutes. Any desserts that you may cooked you can make raw, cakes, cookies, pies, tarts, crisps, ice creams, mousses, puddings, candies all of it. And in my book raw food made easy for 1 or 2 people, I give examples of all those different kinds of desserts.
I wish sweet too and then I like dessert. There is just some basic substitutions to keep in mind. Groundnuts and coconut takes the place of flour and butter. Dried fruits other natural sweeteners replace sugar and avocado replaces cream, butter and eggs. Now it might seem strange to use Avocado in a dessert. But if you think about it cream and butter and eggs don’t really have that much taste on their own, they just make desserts tastes rich, and that’s what the Avocado does, once you covered up with different flavorings you won’t even know its there, its just going to make the dessert rich and creamy.
I am going to make a Gourmet Chocolate Mousse Tart, that looks like a just stepped out of the bakery window but you’ll see how easy it is. Much easier to make than the traditional backed version. Let’s start off with the crust; this crust is made out of walnuts and coconut that’s going to take the place of the flour and butter. And also some dates, these are medjool dates, which is a variety of date that’s very soft and sweet and that’s going to bind the crust ingredients together and give a little bit of sweetness, and I know add a pinch of salt as well. We are going to make this pie crust in the food processor, which is a necessary tool for making a lot of raw food dessert, the cakes, the cookies and the pie crust. Usually I soak my nuts and seeds but there is an exception to that and that’s the desserts. I am using unsoaked walnuts right now and the reason for that is, I want a dry and crumbly texture in this pie crust, same as true if you were going to use these nuts in a cake, you don’t want it to be solid or wet you want it dry and crumbly. So these walnuts are not soaked.
I’ll go ahead and add those to the food processor, I am also going to add some shredded dried unswinged coconut and that gives a lightness to the crust. If you use only nuts the crust is going to be denser. But with the coconut it will be a little lighter. This really it’s going to take the place of flour and a pinch of salt gives a nice and buttery taste to the crust. And I’ll go ahead and process those ingredients until they are crumbly. As looking good it’s resembling coarse crumbs and that’s just what we want. Now I am going to add the dates just enough to bind these ingredients together I removed the pits from these dates all I did was pull them apart in half and just remove the pit and I recommend buying dates that have the pits in them and taking out the pits yourself. Because if you buy them already pitted they can sometimes be a little bit dry and they won’t processes evenly. Just breaking this in half, so that they process a little more quickly
Now I am going to process this mixture until it just begins to start binding together. Its just starting to stick together when I press it between my thumb and fingers at holds and that what you are looking for. Now we’re going to shape it, you don’t need to roll out a raw pie crust that’s also another thing that makes it easier, it shaped with your hands, so I am going to pour these crumbly crust in to a tart pan, you could also use a pie plate, I’m just trying to make it a little bit fancier here. And this is a tart pan with a removable bottom, bottom just comes right out that come and handy and when we are unloading it later. So the first step to shaping a raw pie crust is to evenly distribute the crumbs with your thumb and fingers, and I want do this before I start pressing down it all, I want to get all those crumbs right where I want them, so I am pushing them up the sides little piece of date there, we’ll just take that out, some times it happens you don’t want to over process your crust so its better to under process it in have little bit date in there and you can take it out the over process It can get little bit oily, so I am just distributing these crumbs and I am making a lip up the side you can see this about half inch to a three fourth inch lip here, and we need that, when we press the sides in and then I am spreading the reset of the crumbs on the bottom. It might look like me a lot of crust here but once we press it down its really going to condense.
Alright, so l have got those crumbs distributed and a three forth inch lip around the sides and now I am going to began pressing down the bottom, just pressing firmly with my finger tips, I used walnuts and coconut in this crust, but there is so many variations you can use Almonds you can use macadamia nuts that would be delicious very buttery tasting, and I am pressing a specially firmly in this ridge where the bottom meets the sides and that’s an important so that when you cut the pie or tart it doesn’t slope and have a nice angle.
Ok, We’ve got the bottom press down, now I’m going to work on the sides so the first step is I am going to press in the sides using the side of one of my thumbs and I am going to use the other hand to just guide the crumbs that they don’t fall off. It doesn’t need to look perfectly, we can always go back and clean it up, I am just pressing this in to the fluids at the side of the tart pan and this would be the same step if you are using a pie plate, you just wouldn’t have those fluids. Now I’ll turn the pie and just over the tart and just continue pressing. Alright so now that I pressed in the sides, I can just go around with my finger tips and just kind of clean up any of those edges making it uniform, just pinching. And there you have a homemade raw tart crust, much easier than rolling in out. I am going to use this crust right away as soon as I make my filling but if you want to make the crust in advance you can store it in your freezer for up to 3 months.
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