Raw Raspberry Cake

So for those of you who are reading my blog, you’ll know I’ve been venturing into cooking more raw foods. This was a cake I made based on this recipe by Ani Phyo that was over at the Raw Epicurean.  Since I’m not making anything original, I’ve decided to rate the recipe.

First off you should know that I don’t have a food processor (one of the three key equipment you’ll need to switch to a raw food lifestyle, the other two being a Blendtec blender, which I have, and an Excalibur Dehydrator, which we’re getting.) A food processor is really wide and has a lot of horizontal space for the food to move around in.  It also has “s” shaped blades, which helps to chop up food more evenly in a shorter period, so it doesn’t over process foods. However, it won’t get things as liquidy smooth as a blender, hence why both a recommended.

But, I’ll be using a blender until I find a good used processor that’s relatively inexpensive as Eric and I have already dropped a lot of cash between the blender and the dehydrator (getting her next week, whee!).  When you’re making this recipe, you want the walnut/cocoa (or cacao based on what you have) mixture to be really flour like, but if you process it to much the walnuts will release oil and turn it into walnut butter, instead of walnut cake.

Also this cake is REALLY small, but it’s very dense, tasty, and very filling per slice. Technically one serving size is 1/6th of the cake, and I had 1/12th and it filled me up. And yes, I had it for breakfast. We meant to eat it last night but I fell asleep, so it sat in the fridge and hardened up. However, since switching to raw food, my stomach has shrunk and I don’t need a lot to fill me up, which as many bigger ladies know, is an amazing thing.  When you get bigger, your stomach stretches.  Some really big people have huge stomaches, which is why you see people getting gastric bypass surgery.  You can eat a tub of mac and cheese, feel full, but since you don’t have any nutrients, your body is still hungry.  Eat 1/3 that amount in kale (or even just a bit in a smoothie) and you’ll find yourself able to take less naturally. Or make the mac and cheese with some sort of sprouted grain pasta and a whole raw goat cheese/almond milk sauce.  With a side of spinach. Or chop up the spinach fine and sprinkle it in after your healthy food has been made.

There are a few things I want to improve for next time. I made an avocado mousse the other day, but since I overmixed the avocado it left a slightly diff. aftertaste to every bite, so I under mixed a bit this time.  You can see a few avocado pieces in the ganache, but it’s super duper rich, so you can’t taste the tiny pieces.  I also added flax powder to the cake.

You should check out the recipe and try it yourself. If you don’t have a high speed blender or a processor, try to find walnut-meal, date paste, and dark chocolate powder (or cacao powder, or dutch processed cocoa powder.)

Tags: cake, chocolate, dark chocolate, delicious, raspberry, raw food, tasty