I love experimenting with raw food especially raw desserts, which tend to turn out better than the savoury dishes that I’ve tried. I have made banana cream pie, strawberry cheesecake and pumpkin pie, all of which have turned out pretty OK. However, this one turned out the best and I actually just made this recipe up myself.
For this recipe, you can use your preferred choice of nut or whatever you happen to have in your cupboard. I would suggest cashew nuts, hazelnuts or macadamia nuts. If you are on a budget, you could even use peanuts. Just make sure they are raw, so not toasted or salted. You could also pre-soak them although I didn’t actually do this. I used hazelnuts.
If the nuts are soaked, they will work better in a food processor. I chose not to soak them because I can grind mine easily in my grinder machine. Do whatever works for you depending on what you have. I also did not pre-soak the dates, even though I have seen other recipes often tend to recommend this. I used the drizzle of agave nectar to help bind the crust. Place it in to a pie dish.
Take the filling ingredients and just blend, it will make quite a thick mixture which means you might have to keep stopping the blender to release air pockets from the mix. The optional chips can be added last and just mixed through so that you can keep them as whole, crunchy pieces, or you could just blend them slightly if you want them to be broken down a bit.
Spoon the luscious thick mixture out on to the pie crust. Then place the pie in to the freezer to firm up a bit.
Here is the summary:
Ingredients
For the crust:
1 cup raw hazelnuts or your own preferred raw nut
6-7 raw dates, stones removed
Drizzle of agave nectar
For the filling:
Dark chocolate chips (optional, cacao chips can also be used)
1-2 tablespoons of cocoa powder (or cacao powder)
3-4 frozen bananas (non-frozen may work too)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Agave nectar – I use just a drizzle but you can just adjust according to your preferred level of sweetness
Directions
Grind the hazelnuts in a grinding machine and chop up the dates in to small pieces. Add both mixtures to a food processor along with the drizzle of agave nectar and process until a crumbly consistency is achieved.
Place the mixture in to a pie dish and spread it out to fill the bottom as evenly and tightly as possible.
Place all of the filling ingredients in to a high speed blender, except for the dark chocolate or cacao chips. Blend. You may have to tilt your blender and keep stopping it to remove air pockets.
Add the dark chocolate chips and stir them through the mixture.
Pour the mixture on to the base, and then place in the freezer for an hour or so to firm up.
Enjoy your healthy vegan chocolate pie!
Notes: Where to buy these ingredients in Chiang Mai? I bought my dark chocolate chips from Bakermart which is in Nong Hoi near 89 Plaza. You can also buy cocoa powder there, and you should also be able to get both from Rimping.
At the time of writing, I don't know of anywhere that sells agave nectar, I bring mine over from the UK. You can omit it from the recipe by using a little more dates to the crust to provide the extra stickiness, and use an alternative sweetener for the filling such as coconut sugar, if you need it, as the bananas provide a lot of natural sweetness already.
If you are raw vegan and want to use cacao, unfortunately I haven't seen it in Chiang Mai but you can order it, as well as all the other products mentioned here from a company called www.iherb.com.
