A New Farmers' Market: Almost "Raw" Banana Cream Pie

You might think I'd be getting farmers' market-ed out by this point. How can I keep up my frenetic pace of purchasing fresh produce? Well, it's not like I buy a week's worth of groceries everywhere I go. I buy one or two items, and only what I need for specific recipes I have planned (plus a few whimsical purchases (yes, I call half a dozen corn a "purchase of whimsy"...). My last expedition was to the Fete Éco-Bio Paysanne out at Tohu, the home of Cirque du Soleil. I was expecting more a of a farmers' market setup with tons of fresh produce, and there was some of that, but mostly it was companies offering samples of products, everything from energy bars to soy and rice milk, to yogurt, cheese, ionic foot baths, reflexology, skin care, make-up and two raw restaurants' booths. There was a lot of variety, but I found a conversation I had with a "raw" woman the most interesting.

She started off by explaining the concept of "raw" in a very much "holier-than-thou" kind of way, discussing how bad everything else was for your body, and eating raw is the best thing in the world for absolutely everyone. She got into talking dogmatically about soaking nuts, at which point I interrupted her practiced rant to tell her about the raw banana cream pie I had just made. I told her, self-congratulatorily, that I'd soaked and dehydrated the nuts, but before researching the recipe I hadn't known that this should be done. Her response was something along the lines of, "Sorry to burst your bubble, but almost as important as soaking your nuts is the length of time for which you soak them," and certainly I hadn't soaked them properly, even though she didn't ask me for specifics. I went home and found out later (since she didn't know off-hand...) that almonds need 8-12 hours, but cashews only need 2-3. Now I wondered if soaking for too long was an issue, because I certainly hadn't under-soaked them, but this woman had berated me for my nut ineptitude. Apparently it's not really an issue for most nuts, but cashews are already processed twice so they really don't need much soaking to get them soft. Also, if they soak too long, or dry too slowly, they get a "disagreeable" taste. The soaking is supposed to remove the enzyme-inhibitors that make it harder to digest the nuts, but cashews you don't have so much to worry about because of the processing. Walnuts, brazil nuts, macademia nuts, etc. soak longer. 

Anyway, the point is that I got away from that booth fairly quickly and found my way to the Crudessence booth, my favourite raw-food restaurant in Montreal. They had samples of their "cheese"-cake that was FAR superior to both my raw orange chocolate cheesecake and this banana cream pie, which were both very good, mind you.I think it's mostly because they use a LOT of agave nectar so it's incredibly sweet.

I'll get on with it now. I got this recipe from the same raw site as my last orange chocolate cheesecake, Rawmazing, and I decided to just do one big pie instead of mini, what they call "individual tart servings", but which are much too big for that. This is a perfect dessert when you want to be full after a meal without eating a whole bunch of sugar and things that aren't "good for you". This is NOT low in fat or sugar, but it's all the healthy kinds - nothing refined, nothing saturated.

Crust:

1 1/2 cups walnuts, soaked and dehydrated

1 cup brazil nuts, soaked and dehydrated

5 fresh dates (soaked until soft. After doing some research it seems that medjool dates are the dates of choice for raw recipes. They're much bigger than the pitted dates you'll find at bulk places. I actually used fresh Iranian dates, which are smaller in size, but much juicier. They also don't have that intensely sweet cough-syrupy taste to them. Good medjools don't either, but I was eating my way through the box of fresh dates anyway AND you don't have to soak fresh ones. Les Douceurs du Marché as well as the bulk place in the Atwater market carry them, but I've seen them in P/A supermarkets and La Vieille Europe on St-Laurent. Also, who knows how long you're supposed to soak the dates for! At least there are presumably no enzyme-inhibitors in those.

The original recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of coconut butter in the crust as well, but I just skipped it since the orange cheesecake recipe had the same kind of crust but didn't call for it and I'm slightly intolerant.

So you need to soak the walnuts and brazil nuts for at least 8 hours (overnight is fine) in at least twice as much water (preferably at room temperature covered in a breathable material like a clean kitchen cloth). You can also put them in the fridge, which I think doesn't work as quickly, but is safer for contamination. When you're fermenting anything (and that's basically what this is doing to the nuts) I don't trust "room temperature". In the morning drain and rinse the nuts, place them on a baking sheet (or several) and put them in your oven on the lowest heat with the door open for 12-24 hours. My brazil nuts and walnuts dehydrated well this way, but I had the cashews in a better-insulated dish, so they didn't dry out completely. This was fine, though, since I was using them right away and they were just supposed to be soaked and not dehydrated for the banana cream pie filling below. NOTE! I soaked extra cashews and the ones that didn't dehydrate completely after the soaking got moldy in my cupboard! Freezing them with a little water left in them is fine, I believe, but here's where "room temperature" comes back to haunt you. Throwing out formerly-delicious cashews is sad, but very necessary.

Pulse walnuts and brazil nuts in food processor until coarsely chopped. Add the dates dd to food processor with coconut butter (or not). Process until well blended. You might need to press down to get everything to process well, so be careful. Press into a large pie shell, reserving about 1/4 cup of the filling for garnish. I ended up with a bit too much filling, so you can either snack on it or make an extra little tart. The topping also works well on top of yogurt (very not-raw, I know, though ironically I only eat "raw" (unpasteurized and un-thermised) cheeses and probiotic (similar) yogurts anyway. The crust should be 1/4″ thick all around, but who can actually tell? Just make it as thick or thin as you want. It'll add some savoury-ness and crunch to the pie since the filling is creamy and sweet. I'll just say "crust to taste" and leave it at that.

Filling:

2 cups cashews (soaked 3-4 hours, not dehydrated, but dehydrate any extras you're not using for this recipe)

1 cup young coconut flesh (doesn't that just sound creepy? For a type of eating that doesn't eat animal life this sounds awfully meat-a-tarian. I skipped this because coconut and I don't get along, and just used an extra banana and an extra 1/4-1/2 cup of cashews. It makes the filling less creamy and rich (probably the difference between my cake and the amazing one at Crudessence) but my stomach will be happier. 

1/4 cup coconut water (from fresh coconut). Since I didn't use the coconut I just used water here.

1/4 cup coconut butter (I used 3 tablespoons of earth balance. The flavour is strong and creamy. If you're not vegan or lactose-intolerant, I very much promote using amazing cultured butter here. There's also Becel vegan, which in my opinion tastes better than earth balance (even better if you live in the US and can find the soy-free version of earth balance) but I hate supporting Unilever, the becel company. 

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1/4 cup raw honey (the recipe calls for agave, but I don't like it. Honey has a higher glycemic index, but it also has more flavour, and my unpasteurized "raw" version is delicious.

1 vanilla bean...or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract. Yeah, vanilla beans are expensive...but so is my organic, THICK vanilla extract. I really need to make my own extract. It's just vanilla pods and alcohol.

2 Bananas, sliced (I used 3 because I replaced the coconut flesh)

Your blender or food processor gets a workout. You need to clean it out (or not if you don't mind an imperfect texture in your filling) after making the crust. I processed the cashews, 1 banana and the water first. Then I added the lemon juice, honey, earth balance and one more banana. It was really hard to process this since it's very thick, so be very careful if you press down into the blender when it's turned on. If you make a lot of these desserts, invest in a good food processor or vitamix. When it's all mixed, add the last sliced banana (the first two just need to be roughly chopped so they blend, but this one should be a little more carefully sliced) and just stir. Don't blend it in. Pour the filling into the nut crust, sprinkle the top with the remaining crust, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. The pie will thicken as it cools, and the top will turn a darker shade of purple since the banana oxidizes, which is beautiful. 

The online recipe says you can drizzle with "raw" chocolate, but I didn't like the recipe since I didn't have any cacao butter and I didn't want to use anymore earth balance to replace coconut butter.

I would have been more happy with just finding some really good quality dark chocolate, melting it, and drizzling it over top. You could also melt it with a little sweetener (agave or honey) to make a bittersweet chocolate with a high percentage of cacao into a semisweet chocolate without the refined or cane sugar generally used, or add a little almond milk to turn it into milk chocolate...so many options.

Oh, and since this cake only lasts a few days in the fridge, freeze it after 2. It's even better when you eat it frozen since the banana becomes silken and smooth.

My Second "Raw" Dessert Recipe (Sort Of): Orange Chocolate Cheesecake

So I thought this was my first "raw" recipe (not including salads and raw vegetables, of course), but then I remembered my raw chocolate mousse made from avocado, cocoa powder, lemon juice, agave nectar, sea salt, and shoya shoju (I think it's called)...but I did cheat and use tamari, and my cocoa was not raw cacao, and I probably added balsamic vinegar which is probably not allowed). All in all, not such a raw dessert.

So I started this one with good intentions too, like the mousse, but ended up cheating just as badly. I did learn some amazing things, though! Like soaking nuts in water starts a fermentation process and releases certain enzymes in the nuts that are not so great for you. It also makes the nuts lower in fat (I have no reference on this). It definitely makes the nuts easier to digest, so even if you don't care about fat and enzymes in particular, have some compassion for your stomach. At first when I read about the soaking it seemed like it would just make it easier to process the cashews in the food processor, and give a smoother texture, but at the time I was researching South Indian dosa and idli, which require soaking lentils and rice overnight to create a slightly fermented, subsequently pulverized flour that doesn't require a long cooking period normally associated with legumes and starch. It's pretty much the same idea.

So there was a traditional food culture to back up the "raw" food theory! That makes me pretty happy.

I usually hate orange and chocolate together, but there's really not much chocolate in this, and the orange flavour was fresh and sweet, without the processed sugar of a carton of fake juice. The nice thing was the recipe wasn't really that hard. It just took a fair bit of planning to have the nuts soaked. You can't leave them soaking forever, so once you start them soaking you're setting yourself on a cheesecake time line. The recipe came from a great website, Rawmazing, that I highly recommend for raw food questions, answers, techniques and recipes. I could also get very much into the whole "what is raw food" and the according debate about its benefits, but I'll let the website do my work for me.

Orange Chocolate Cheesecake (it wasn't really this orange...it's just bad lighting)

Crust:

• 1 cup Almonds*
• 1/4 cup Cacao Powder
• 3 Dates (I used about 6 since my dried ones were very small. Next time I want to make this recipe with fresh dates, the softer, squishy ones you can find in boxes imported from Iran. Then I will have to remove the pit, but leave the skin on to blend)
  

Combine all ingredients in the food processor. Process until ground fine. Mixture should hold together when pressed. If it doesn’t, add water, 1 Tbsp at a time until texture is achieved. I had to add about 2 tbsp of water, but another way to do this would be to use a little bit more agave and a little less dates if you want a lower glycemic index...or have no dates. I took the mixture out of the blender before realizing it needed a little water, so I ended up mixing it in with my hands. Kind of messy, but that's what baking should be. Set aside 1/4 cup of the filling AFTER processing to the RIGHT consistency. Press all but the 1/4 cup of the mixture into the bottom of 8" spring form pan. Place in refrigerator.

*The website author, Susan, soaks her almonds and dries them as soon as she gets them. From reading through the comments on the recipe page I found out that this means she soaks them overnight and then dehydrates them right away for the same harmful enzyme-reducing reasons described above. You can also make this recipe with un-soaked and un-dehydrated almonds. Variations on Susan's method include soaking the almonds 2 nights before making the recipe, (the cashews below don't need to be dehydrated afterward, so you can soak them just one night in advance) and then dehydrating the day before. If you don't have a dehydrator there are methods to dehydrate by placing the almonds in your oven overnight (or many hours, until dry. I'm not so comfortable with leaving the oven on overnight either) on the lowest possible temperature with the door open slightly. What I did, because I'm not a raw foodist, was soak the almonds one night before, like the cashews (but in a different bowl) and then toast them in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven, turning them until they were aromatic and dry. I like the extra flavour created by the toasting, like my hazelnut chocolate mousse birthday cake. I also think this is easier for you digest, but I'm not basing that on a whole lot of scientific evidence either.

Filling:

• 3 Oranges (make sure you have very good oranges. "Good" in this case just means juicy, not dry, and of a flavour that you like. Some people like sweeter ones, some like tangier, etc. Not all oranges are created equal, so buy an extra one or two to test first. If you like the flavour, go for it. Don't leave them in the fridge for months waiting to be used. They last, but they do dry out)
• 2/3 cup agave nectar. This was my downfall. I used 1/3 cup of honey instead. I thought it was plenty sweet, but apparently it's probably the reason my pie didn't solidify as well in the fridge. It changed the consistency of the dish. There are other ways to solidify, though, like Irish Moss, a kind of sea vegetable, and I wonder about agar-agar, which often replaces gelatin in raw and vegan recipes. Honey is fine as long as you don't mind more of a pudding than a cake.
  
• 2 1/2 cup cashews (soaked at least 3 hours or overnight). I thought the consistency might have been messed up because the cashews were so liquidy, but apparently that's fine.
  
• 3/4 C Coconut Butter (I also thought I may have screwed up here, by using earth balance instead of coconut butter, since I'm sensitive (digestion) to coconut. Note, coconut butter is not coconut oil, and there are other possible substitutions. I'm a huge fan of my earth balance substitution, though, because it worked well for the same reason that French orange sauces finished in butter work well on chicken and fish (trust me and just try it if you don't know what I'm talking about), like in my roasted cornish game hen recipe where I thought it would suck but ended up being delicious. Sometimes orange surprises me.
  
• 1/2 t. Sweet Orange Essential Oil (optional as it is not raw but still very healthy, apparently). I think you could also use an orange extract, but better would be Grand Marnier or Triple Sec, both of which are orange-flavoured liqueurs. Neither of which are particularly good for you or "raw", however...
  

Grate the zest off of all the oranges. You should have at least 3 tbsp. Be careful to only get the orange part as the pith (the white) is bitter. Squeeze the juice out of all the oranges. You should have about 2/3 cup. Drain the cashews that you've soaked at least 3 hours and place them with the agave, coconut butter, zest, essential oil, and agave and orange juice in the food processor and process until very smooth. You need a very powerful food processor (like a VitaMix - very expensive...) or blender to get this really smooth. I ended up with a grainy texture but I kind of like that. The mousse doesn't evaporate like air, so you don't over-eat as much of the high-fat treat at a time.

The food processor is the great thing about raw recipes. There are no complicated cooking processes of double boilers, or candy thermometres, or incorporating egg whites without collapsing. There are no beating to the obscure "stiff peaks" phase. Nothing gets "over-cooked". The worst you can do is leave things soaking a few days too long, which causes a bit too much bacteria and fear of contamination. Still, a few days is a lot better window or error than a few seconds with traditional baking techniques. So, hurray.

Pour the filling from the blender into the crust, and sprinkle the extra crust on top. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving.

Oh, I was so happy and satisfied. I had it for dessert when I was already pretty full. You don't want to eat this when you're very hungry because you'll end up eating WAY too much. It's a treat, so treat it as such.