What Happened?
Ann says
What happened to the last two months, I really could not accurately tell you. However I will, at this time, try.
Abe would tell me, “don’t explain why we haven’t posted. Just post a recipe.” But I feel too guilty; I feel too tired to just jump back in with the vim and vigor that some other, more sane person, might have.
Abe says
Pfff. The internet deserves to know. It is the will of the people.
Also I’ll get to talking more in our next post; for now Ann has made us delicious mixed drinks.
Ann says
I am 9 days away from graduating from nursing school. Projects, research papers, clinical hours, volunteer hours, and ridiculous tests plus job searching and studying for the nursing boards has left me dazed. On top of that, Abe and I just moved in together. YES! It is glorious. I get home, he gets home, we are both home. No packing up a change of clothes and work out shoes and remembering my hair brush anymore! No driving/walking/bike riding back and forth! But oh, the move. I moved the day before the hottest Seattle day ever recorded (103 degrees) and the day after a 5 day stretch of 12 hour work days. What the crack was I thinking.
Then, the next day, when it was 103 degrees in Seattle, I got to be here…
That’s my friend Peter, me, and Lyndsay from school. and I was on his big-ass boat in puget sound. DAMN. I actually got chilly.
It is my suspicion that a few people out there would like to see a recipe from us. Perhaps some of you were thinking, “those two are flaky, inconsistent blog posters.” You would be correct. That is exactly what I am. I am a nursing student, people! What. the. crack.
Remember the last post from oh-so-long ago? My now ex-roommate, Mara, and her boy, Ricardo, were being raw vegan. Well, they’re not anymore, but while they were, Mara’s birthday rolled around. And I offered to make her a birthday cake. o_O
Abe and I sampled some raw deserts from our local market, Madison Market, aka Mad Market. We enjoyed it thoroughly, but it was much more of a mousse than a cake and therefore needed a mold. I toyed with the idea of pureeing a bunch of stuff and holding it together with nut flours and whatnot….but I imaged thick, dense, gooey crap.
There was the option of dehydrating. But folks, it was like 80 degrees outside. Hells no. So I decided to make an ice cream layer cake with some sort of chocolaty sweet gooey crumble between the layers…something reminiscent of the Dairy Queen ice cream cake of my childhood birthday parties.
Coconut-Pineapple-Strawberry Layers. Woo! It came out cool, sweet, very fruity, but also rich from the coconut and crumble layers. Clean plates must mean success!
Raw-Food Sorbet Layer Cake
Ingredients:
2 lbs fresh strawberries
18 oz of the flesh and juice of coconuts
1 pineapple
1 cup honey (1/3 cup for each batch)
1/2 cup rice milk
a pinch of xanthan gun or splash of vodka for texture (if you’re being loose about it)
2 cups raw cashews
1 1/2 cups pitted dates
2/3 cup cocoa nibs
1/2 cup cocoa butter
3 Tbs honey
Start one or two days ahead to allow enough time to make the ice cream layers and keep the ice cream maker cold.
Crumble layer: 2 cups raw cashews, 1 1/2 cups pitted dates, 2/3 cup cocoa nibs, 1/2 cup cocoa butter, 3 Tbs honey. Chop in a food processor until crumbly and sticks together when pressed.
In a 9 inch spring form pan place a piece of parchment paper on the bottom. Oil the sides with a flavorless vegetable oil. Press 1/3 of the crumble mixture as a crust into the bottom of the pan.
Cocount layer- puree the coconut and 1/3 cup of honey. Taste and adjust for sweetness if desired. If using, puree in the xanthan gum, vodka, or both. Follow the directions on your ice cream maker.Spread on top of the crust and freeze until firm.
Pineapple Layer- Cut up pineapple and place chunks in a food processor. Puree the pineapple and add the honey; adjust as above and add xanthan gum or vodka as before. Do this with the next one too. Ice cream it. Evenly coat the coconut layer with the second batch of crumble and the spread the pinapple sorbet on top. Freeze.
Strawberry layer- Puree the strawberries and put them through a siev to get the seeds out. Add the honey and rice milk etc. Ice cream it. Spread the last bit of crumble on the pineapple layer. Spread the strawberry sorbet on top of that. Freeze.
Serves 8-10 people.
Yay for graduating! Yay for surviving the crazy schedule! :-)
The cake looks yummy and deliciously fruity-sweet and smooth. In fact, I’d even take a bite now if I could, in spite of just coming home from a BBQ where I stuffed myself.
It was truly refreshing. I don’t know what Seattle was thinking when it got so hot. It is now it’s appropriate mid-70s plus a little gray and rainy. Oh how I missed it!
this was YUMMAAY!!! Ann, in my story-telling future, you may be forever known as “the awesome roommate who made me a raw vegan birthday cake.”