A taste of summer

We have reached that time of year when the season is somewhere between winter and spring. That time is very long here in sweden and can go on for abut two months. One day we have heavy snowstorm, another rain but we also have sunny days when the sun is warming our pale faces. 

This time of year cause every one to long for spring and green grass. 

Luckily, I have saved a bit of summer by drying black currant and raspberry leaves for tea. These leaves makes an excellent green tea.

Pour nearly boiling water over a heap of leaves and let them soak for a few minutes. You can easily pick the soaked leaves up with a spoon.

There you have it, a lovely and mild black currant flavoured green tea that fills you with a summer spirit.

Raw Valentine dessert: Mini chocolate and carob tartelettes and Vanilla pudding with cherry topping

It's Valentines day!! Of course we should give our loved ones some care all the year around, but I think it's good to celebrate a day like this by giving some extra love. 
I wanted to make something special, a not too sweet treat with those ingredients that is conected with love; chocolate and cherries.

This little tartelette is so deliscious. I wanted the crust to have a caramel taste by adding dates.

Crust for the tartelette, ingredients:
5 dates
0,5 dl oat
1 dle almond flour
1 tbsp raw coconut oil
0,5 dl sunflower seeds
Mix all ingredients to a sticky paste, make sure that the dates are fully dispersed, I used a mortar to this step. Adjust the thickness of the crust by adding the almond flour to perfect stickyness.

Fill two small mini pie forms and push the dough against the walls. Put the forms in the freezer. If you have leftovers from this step, you can fill dates with the paste or roll balls in carob or cocoa powder.

Caramel and chocolate is a perfect match. If you don't have any cacao butter you can use only coconut oil, but that will give the tartelette a very strong coconut flavour.

Filling:
20 g of Cacao butter
1 tblsp of raw Coconut oil
1 tblsp of Almond milk
0,5 tsp Honey
1,5 tsp Carob
2 tsp Cacao
a pinch of seasalt
The almond milk will make the filling a bit softer. Melt the butter and oil along with milk and honey on low heat. Pull the mixture of the heat and add carob and cacao and stir well. Add the pinch of seasalt. Oddly the seasalt makes the filling sweeter and enhance the chokolate taste.

Fill the crusts with the filling and put them back in the freezer to set. After half an hour put them in the fridge until serving. 

Chia seeds are perfect to get that perfect pudding like thickness of a liquid. It looks weird but the non existing taste of the seeds makes them perfect for adding any flavour  you like.

Vanilla pudding
1 tsp of honey
1,5 dl Almond milk
2 tblsp chia seeds
 a pinch of vanilla powder
Whisk everything together and whisk every 5th minute three to four times. Then pour the blend into your serving cup and store in the fridge until serving

Cherry topping 
2 dl Seedless Cherries (sour)
1 tsp honey
pinch of vanilla powder
Mix all the ingredients to a runny jam and stor in the fridge until serving

When serving the pudding you can choose to pour the cherry jam over the pudding, or in small glasses and serve at the side.

Note that each serve contains only 2,5 dates and 1tsp of honey, that's not much sugar if you compare what an ordinary dessert of this kind would contain. 
Have a lovely Valentines day <3