Recipe: Vegan Cacao Caramel Pods
So a few weeks ago we got a comment on the blog challenging us to go vegetarian for a week and share what we ate to give meal ideas to people, we accepted that challenge. This week we aren't eating any meat and yesterday I was doing all the meal prep for that. While I was prepping I decided I wanted to make a little 'treat' snack for the week as well and these happened...
Makes 12 servings
(per 1) Carbs 62g / Fat 7g / Protein 7g / Calories 313
Base Ingredients
- 2 cups organic buckwheat flour
- 2 cups pitted dates
- 1 tbsp molasses
- Water (you'll just eyeball this)
- Coconut oil (for lining the pan/tray/mould)
Filling Ingredients
- 2 cups coconut cream
- 4 tbsp organic cacao powder (note: this will turn out to be a very bitter chocolate, if you don't like bitter, swap to unsweetened cocoa powder)
- 2 tbsp coconut nectar
Caramel Topping Ingredients
- Fresh medjool dates (about 6)
- Water
- 1 pinch himalayan salt
Method
- Chop the pitted dates up
- In a food processor (or blender if you're game) combine the chopped dates, molasses and buckwheat flour and begin to process them
- Add in a few drops of water at a time until the mix begins to stick together and becomes like a dough.
- For this step I used a square 'cupcake tray' lightly sprayed with coconut oil, but you can use any kind of shallow mould, you don't want it to be more than 1 inch deep. Press the base dough into the mould and form a 'shell'. The mix created enough for 12 very large pods for me.
- Pop the tray in the oven on about 200 degrees celsius and let them cook for 15-20 minutes until they are golden brown.
- While the base is cooking whisk together the coconut cream, cacao and coconut nectar in a bowl and then pop it into the fridge.
- Remove the base from the oven and let them cool.
- Once they are cool pour in the filling ingredients and then place them in the fridge to set for about 4 hours.
- To create the caramel sauce topping grab about 6 fresh medjool dates and pop them into the microwave for 45 seconds (this will make it easier to remove the pits)
- Squeeze the pits from the dates and put them into the food processor.
- Start to process the dates and add a little bit of water and the pinch of salt as you go. Add the water slowly because it won't take much for these to become a creamy consistency.
- Add on top of the 'pods' to serve.
