RAW VEGAN PEANUT BUTTER & CHOCOLATE BUTTER CREAM CUPS

I know. They sound amazing. They look orgasmic. But guess what - they taste EVEN BETTER. Plus: gifs. I was having a busy afternoon in the kitchen a couple days, whipping up a raw vegan cake (which will be coming soon, don't ya worry babe), and I ended up with an extra container of raw vegan chocolate "butter cream". I don't usually like calling my recipes after their non-vegan conventional counterparts BUT in this case, this recipe ACTUALLY tastes just like chocolate butter cream... but of course it's vastly superior because it's cruelty-free and HEALTHY. So much caps lock today. What's goin' on.

Hey, guys. Back to the story, you're getting me off topic. I ended up with all this extra chocolate frosting - not the worst problem in the world (in fact, it's probably the greatest) but I still had to figure out what to do with it. I also promised my lover that I'd bring them some kind of chocolate delight when I saw them the next day. I decided to make inside-out Reeses cups. Yeah, man. It's happening. It HAPPENED.

For the filling, as I hope you already surmised, I used my *famous* chocolate butter cream recipe (it's not truly famous, but I just love it a lot so it's a celeb in my world). To make the outside of the cups, I combined tahini (sesame seed butter) with peanut butter and coconut oil. The coconut oil allows the nut/seed butter to become solid when refrigerated. Heh heh heh - I'm so clever. Not really but this is what I tell myself in order to get up every day; the sunshine and chirping birds help too. The final result is simply to-die-for. I mean I'd seriously consider sacrificing my own life so more people could get this in their mouths. The thing is: I cannot fathom in what world I would have to die so people could eat chocolate... that makes zero sense. And thank goodness! This means we can all shove these things in our faces, mouthgasm into nirvana and still LIIIVE. Yesssss.

RAW VEGAN PEANUT BUTTER & CHOCOLATE BUTTER CREAM CUPS  

Filling:
This chocolate butter cream recipe.

Outside:
3 tablespoons coconut oil
3 tablespoon peanut butter 
3 tablespoons tahini 

Note: you can use whatever nut/seed butter(s) you want. Also: try to be patient and let the butter cream sit in the fridge overnight, it becomes exactly 1 million times more amazing.

Stir the outside layer ingredients together in a bowl over steaming water until melted and combined. Pour 1/3 of this into the bottoms of cupcake papers and try to get some around the sides. Freeze until solid. Pour a little more around the sides and freeze until solid again. Fill with the butter cream then cover with the remaining nut/seed butter mixture. Freeze for 10-30 minutes then GOBBLE. 

reeses pie

this is really yummy and pretty darn healthy. it's not raw because it has tofu, but hey, in my books - tofu is A-OK. the crust is mostly peanuts and as you can see the filling is chocolate, so it's like a giant reeses peanut butter cup!

sorry the pictures aren't very good today... long story short, my camera has been stolen! along with many other valuables. i guess that's why you don't leave important possessions in your car when you go camping in the wilderness. lesson learned.

here's some lovely music to stream while you make this pie. the album is brand new and beautiful.

reeses peanut butter chocolate pie: makes one pie

crust:

1 cup peanuts

1 cup walnuts

1 cup dates

1 tablespoon peanut butter (if needed)

filling:

1 package firm tofu

2 tablespoons honey/agave/maple syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons cocoa

1 1/2 cups vegan chocolate chips (or broken up chocolate bars)

to make the crust, blend all the ingredients together in your food processor until it forms a crumbly ball. press into a pie plate and refrigerate. to make the filling, melt the chocolate, then blend all ingredients together until smooth. spoon the filling into the crust and let it chill for an hour or two. this is good with bananas... but isn't everything?

a dream come true! coconut chocolate date cups

Last night I dreamt I was at a party with all my friends, on a boat. We were all dancing and havin' a great time when someone was like - "there's raw vegan prizes!"
 I won a raw vegan peanut butter cup! In my dream, this translated into this thing in the shape of a peanut butter cup, but the chocolate part was coconut butter, and the filling was dates, nut butter and cacao. Yum!
So I woke up and I thought - "I need to make this". Thus today I made my dreams come true... deliciously, healthily true.

I'm tired of hearing people say coconuts are fattening because they have a lot of fat. This is simply not true. In fact, unless you're eating buckets of coconut butter everyday, it will probably help you lose weight; as the animal fats or processed oils in your body are replaced with mean and lean medium chain fatty acids (of saturated fat). THESE fats found in coconut have no cholesterol, and they have anti-viral, anti-microbial and anti-fungal properties. They also have a crazy amount of anti-oxidants which fight cancer; cholesterol-lowering properties; and skin-moisturizing abilities (Wolfe, 2009). I use coconut oil on my skin and hair almost every day.

Coconut is a superfood I think everyone should eat!  See for yourself. 

Did you know?  Coconut water is almost identical to blood plasma.  And greens are basically chlorophyll (which is just like hemoglobin). Blood is made up of 55% plasma, and 45% hemoglobin - so when you blend a drink of 55% coconut water and 45% green smoothie - you get a blood transfusion!

Coconut Date Dreams: makes around 4

 

1/4 cup coconut butter

2 Tb cashew butter

1 Tb almond butter

3 soaked dates

1 Tb honey/agave/maple syrup 

3 t cocoa 

Some vanilla and salt, to taste 

Melt the about 1/3 of the coconut butter and pour a very small amount into the bottom of 3 cupcake papers/molds... perhaps 1/2 cm? (However much coconut butter you want to be on the bottom)

Put these in the fridge.

Next, blend all the other ingredients until smooth. Taste it... yum! 

When the coconut butter has re-hardened in the molds, drop a scoop of the date mixture into each, make sure they're not too tall, and don't touch the sides. Refrigerate again.

When they've hardened a bit more, pour the rest of the coconut butter over each (you may have to melt it again). The melted coconut butter should just cover the date mixture.

Put 'em back in the fridge and let them harden up, until they're white. Then take them out of their molds and voila! Delicious for your mouth, skin, hair and cells!