Recipe: persimmon carob raw cake (vegan & paleo friendly)

So, who’s ready for a guilt-free cake?? 😀

Last week, I share with you my healthy chocolate salami recipe, which I thought would be a really good dessert to try out in this season.

Today, I would like to share with you another healthy and delicious recipe: a persimmon carob raw cake. Maybe you could try to do it for New Year’s eve? 🙂 I will be serving this to my friends that will come over!

If you have been following our blog, you probably remember that a few months ago I shared with you my raw berry “cheesecake”. The bottom and top layers of this recipe are similar, but the middle filling is now mainly made out of persimmon, almond butter and vanilla. If you love persimmon and vanilla, and especially the combination of these two, I suspect you will really enjoy this recipe. And I find the carob fits really nicely in the recipe as well (in a different layer). But I’m looking forward to hear your opinion 🙂

This recipe is of course sugar-free (as all my recipes), dairy-free, gluten-free and, as a matter of fact, any grain-free.

As I mentioned, one of the main ingredients in this recipe is persimmon. Did you know that persimmon in latin is Diospyros kaki, which means “food of Gods”? This is not surprising given that they have many healthy benefits, including helping fighting cancer [1], lower total and LDL cholesterol [2] and have been recommended for an antiatherosclerotic diet* [3]. This is likely due to their high content of certain antioxidant types, which have been shown to help inactivating free radicals [1, 4]. Besides antioxidants, they are also rich in fiber, carotenoids, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin B6, manganese, copper, magnesium and potassium.

* Atherosclerosis occurs when a plaque builds up inside your arteries, which can lead to cardiovascular diseases.

So, let’s go now to the recipe 🙂

Preparation time: (~15min for each layer)

Ingredients:

For the bottom layer:

– 250g organic almonds (on amazon.com or amazon.co.uk or amazon.de)

– 100g organic dates (on amazon.com or amazon.co.uk or amazon.de)

– a pinch of salt

For the middle layer:

– 3 organic persimmons (~900g)

– 5 tablespoons organic white almond butter (on amazon.de – that’s the one I buy)

– 1 tablespoon organic extra-virgin coconut oil (cold-pressed) (on amazon.co.uk or amazon.de)

– 1/2 teaspoon vanilla powder (on amazon.co.uk or amazon.de)

For the top layer:

– 2 big organic ripe avocados (~400g)

– 2 tablespoons of carob powder (on amazon.com or amazon.co.uk or amazon.de)

– 1 tablespoon extra-virgin coconut oil (cold-pressed) (on amazon.co.uk or amazon.de)

– 70g organic dates (on amazon.com or amazon.co.uk or amazon.de)

– walnuts for topping

Preparation:

1.Soak the almonds in water for about 8 hours (e.g. overnight) and the dates for 1-2 hours.

2. Throw the water away and rinse the almonds and dates.

3. Add all ingredients of the bottom layer to a food processor and blend. Note: You don’t need to obtain a homogenous dough. It’s actually nice to still find little nut pieces in the dough.

4. Add this dough to a rectangular recipient (e.g. one or several glass boxes or an oven glass tray) and press it down with your fingers.

5. Add all ingredients for the middle layer to a blender. Mix until you obtain a smooth and homogeneous mixture.

6. Pour this filling over the bottom layer. Let this to set in the fridge overnight or in the deep freezer for about 1-2 hours.

7. Add all ingredients for the top layer to your blender. Blend until the mixture is homogeneous and smooth.

8. Pour it over the middle layer.

9. Add walnuts to the top of the cake.

10. Keep it in the fridge during some hours (so that it gets more consistent) until serving or deep freeze it and take it out of the deep freezer about 30min before serving (so that it gets softer but still with a nice consistency).

I hope you liked this recipe and you will try it! I’m looking forward to receive your feedback 🙂

Live healthy 🙂

Ana

References

1. Adhami, V.M., et al., Dietary flavonoid fisetin: a novel dual inhibitor of PI3K/Akt and mTOR for prostate cancer management. Biochem Pharmacol, 2012. 84(10): p. 1277-81.
2. Gato, N., et al., Persimmon fruit tannin-rich fiber reduces cholesterol levels in humans. Ann Nutr Metab, 2013. 62(1): p. 1-6.
3. Gorinstein, S., et al., Comparative contents of dietary fiber, total phenolics, and minerals in persimmons and apples. J Agric Food Chem, 2001. 49(2): p. 952-7.
4. Chen, X.N., et al., Radical scavenging activity and phenolic compounds in persimmon (Diospyros kaki L. cv. Mopan). J Food Sci, 2008. 73(1): p. C24-8.