Who doesn’t love a chocolate & orange combo?
I wasn’t going to post this recipe as it was the result of a different botched test but I got so many comments from the picture I had to make it again so I could write it down!
This started out as a strawberry cheesecake!!!
Have faith that there is a silver lining in every cloud! Developing recipes is a time-consuming and expensive exercise. For every recipe that I post, there are multiple attempts that get refined and retested until I am happy with the end result. The products of these attempts get dispensed to the kids or willing neighbours or the dog, if he’s lucky!!
Sometimes, I go through a stage of not producing anything that I am happy with, hence, my lack of posts lately. Sometimes, I am on a roll and production is prolific.
Recently, while on holiday, I succumbed to the dreaded call of the “dessert buffet”. Hmm, this was BAD….. Fortunately everything was so sweet, that I couldn’t tolerate the decadent morsels on display, but its amazing what you can force yourself to do when you are compromised!!!!
I had cheesecake.
Dairy, sugar & wheat. DRUGS! I say, DRUGS!!!!
It’s just as well I don’t holiday in 5 star buffet heaven very often. Needless to say, the memory is lingering back at home and I was toying around with a dairy free gluten-free recipe which I failed many times over. Not wanting to waste the ingredients I recycled them and came up with this slice. It resembles NOTHING of the original concept, if in doubt, add chocolate, I say!
To make the base:
100g blanched almonds or macadamias 70g coconut 2 tab sunflower seeds 1 teas sesame seeds 1 tab chia seeds 40g dates or dried figs 1 tab coconut nectar or rice syrup or maple syrup pinch salt Add all of the ingredients to the TM and grind on SP 8 for 5 – 10 seconds. It will come together as wet crumbs that press together in a ball when pressed. Add a little water if it’s too dry. Press this mix into a square tin and put in the freezer while you make the topping. 100g blanched almonds (or cashews) Rind of 1/2 orange pinch salt 20g raw cacao 80g coconut oil, liquid Vanilla to taste 60g coconut nectar or rice syrup or maple syrup 60g coconut cream or almond milk, room temperature stevia to taste Mill the nuts with the orange rind on SP 9 for 5 seconds. Add the rest of the ingredients mix for 2 minutes on SP 7. You will have a smooth chocolatey mass, which you need to pour over the base. Freeze for at least 1 hour to firm up. Store in the fridge or freezer.