This week hasn’t got off to the best of starts for me, seeing as I’ve had to spend the majority of today and yesterday tucked up in bed feeling extremely worse for wear. I had a pretty extensive recipe testing session last week and these were one of the creations that I came up with.. and they probably lasted less than two hours before being eaten up! (I think my boyfriend ate about 8 in one sitting!)
I mentioned before, my love for tahini and that It also works in sweet dishes as well as savoury. I know this probably sounds a little bit strange, but the savoury flavours from the tahini blend beautifully against the intense sweetness from the dates and also helps to create a really thick and creamy texture for the caramel. Just to make these that little bit more delicious, the caramel layer is also flavoured with rich and creamy Ombar Mylk chocolate- which is a dairy and refined sugar free raw chocolate bar made with coconut milk. This glorious caramel layer sits on top of a deliciously crisp, raw biscuit base, which is just one of my favourite things- It’s so simple, tasty and not overpoweringly sweet.
These are definitely more of a weekend treat, rather than an everyday thing.. but if I’m going to treat myself, I want to make sure it’s filled with amazing ingredients and tastes delicious! Even though I’ve been making these kinds of things for over a year now, I still find it pretty impressive how decadent treats like this can be created from a few simple and very healthy ingredients! A couple of years ago, if someone would have told me that I could make cakes from dates, nuts and tahini, I very much doubt that I would have believed them. I definitely didn’t anticipate that they would taste this good either! I honestly don’t think that I’d go back to eating other desserts again.
Ingredients:
1 cup pecans
1 cup cashews
1 tbsp coconut oil
3 tbsp maple syrup
7 medjool dates
3 tbsp light tahini
1/4 cup plant milk
1 Ombar Mylk chocolate bar
Drizzle of water
Cacao nibs & Ombar chocolate buttons to garnish
Method:
1. Add the cashews and pecans into a food processor and pulse these together for a few seconds to crush them so that they have a slightly thicker consistency that a flour.
2. Add in the coconut oil and maple syrup and blend until everything starts to stick together. Pour the base mixture into a lined baking dish and firmly press down to create a smooth base. Leave this in the freezer to set whilst you make the caramel layer.
3. To make the tahini caramel, add the dates, tahini and milk into a food processor and blend these to create a smooth caramel like mix. Add as much or as little water to help everything to blend. Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie and pour this into the food processor and blend to combine with the caramel.
4. Spread the caramel over the top of the biscuit base and leave in the freezer for an hour to set. Slice into bars and decorate with some raw cacao nibs and Ombar chocolate buttons.
