Desserts & Sweetness » Loving Superfoods

Chocolate Mousse Pudding with Irish Moss

Chocolate Mousse Pudding

I’ve never been a fan of the raw chocolate mousse like recipes that combine an avocado with a sweetener and chocolate. They taste alright, but my body doesn’t seem to like avocados mixed with sweet things. (translation: I get really stinky farts).

Thankfully I’ve found a just-as-good-or-better alternative that uses a fun and nutritive seaweed called Irish Moss.

Irish Moss has many awesome superfood properties. As a seaweed it’s high in iodine which is really good for your thyroid. When you soak Irish Moss in water it forms into a mucilaginous gel (much like soaked flax seeds, soaked chia seeds and aloe leaf insides). This gel is really good for your digestion as it helps to bind together any toxins and push them out. To further benefit from all the superfood properties of Irish Moss, consider making a bit extra gel (see directions below) and adding a heaping Tablespoon to your daily smoothies.

Irish Moss Gel
To make 1 cup of Irish Moss gel start with 1/4 Cup dry Irish Moss seaweed or flakes (not the powdered form). First rinse the Irish moss seaweed or flakes very well. Pick out any bits of sand. As you rinse and rinse and rinse the Iris moss, it will expand to about 1/2 cup of re-hydrated seaweed. Soak this rinsed Irish moss in 2x the amount of water overnight (1 Cup of water). The Irish moss will expand further and form a sort of gel. Blend this gelatinous mixture in a blender until smooth. You are now ready to make the mousse using 1 Cup of this blended, smooth gel. (I get my Irish Moss from Mountain Rose Herbs).

Chocolate Mousse Pudding

1 Cup Irish Moss gel (see instructions above)

1 tsp Ground Vanilla Bean

1/2 tsp Lecithin (if you’re out, you can also use Tocos, though it might not set as thick)

1/2 Cup Cacao Powder

1.5 Cup pure water (or a fresh nut milk like coconut milk)

1/2 Cup Vanilla Agave Nectar

1 Tbsp Coconut Butter

1/4 Cup Coconut Oil

Blend all ingredients except the coconut oil until smooth. Add the coconut oil and blend again. Pour this thick liquid into a serving container and refrigerate (or freeze for faster cooling) for about 30 minutes. The irish moss gel, lecithin and coconut oil all help this mousse to set into a solid pudding that you can then scoop out for serving or eat directly with a spoon.

Enjoy!

Mint Cacao Nib Ice Cream

This is an easy raw ice cream that does not require an ice cream maker or constant stirring – just blend the ingredients and freeze. It’s easily scoopable for the first couple of days and gets harder to scoop the longer it’s in the freezer (so just pick at it with your spoon or take it out of the freezer to soften a little bit before serving if you reach that stage of hardness).

3 Cups Water

1.5 Cups Vanilla Agave Nectar or Honey

1 Avocado

2 Cups Cashews (soaked and rinsed)

1 Tbsp Mint Leaves (dried or fresh)

2 drops Mint Essential Oil (peppermint, spearmint or wintergreen)

½ Cup Cacao Nibs

Blend all the ingredients except the cacao nibs until smooth. Pour into container(s) and stir in the cacao nibs. Freeze for about 4-6 hours before devouring. : )

Many thanks to Katrina Blair and the Turtle Lake Refuge “Local Wild Life” recipe book for the inspiration on this recipe. Tastes just as good or better than the traditional mint chocolate chip ice cream. Enjoy!

Raw Cheesecake Made With Irish Moss

We love our Raw Cheesecake recipe we’ve been making for several years now – it’s so creamy and delicious. And it also is a little bit “heavy” with all the cashews in it. So I thought I’d try a variation that uses some Irish Moss to make the cheesecake a little lighter while keeping all the creamy deliciousness.

In addition to helping make the cheesecake lighter, Irish Moss has many awesome superfood properties. As a seaweed it’s high in iodine which is really good for your thyroid. When you soak Irish Moss in water it forms into a mucilaginous gel (much like soaked flax seeds, soaked chia seeds and aloe leaf insides). This gel is really good for your digestion as it helps to bind together any toxins and push them out. To further benefit from all the superfood properties of Irish Moss, consider making a bit extra gel (see directions below) and adding a heaping Tablespoon to your daily smoothies.

As for the cheesecake with Irish Moss in it, it turned out to be just as delicious, or maybe even more so. Here’s the updated recipe …

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Caramaca 3.0

I inherited this really cool-looking raw superfood recipe book called Raw Magic by Kate Wood and I was very excited to try her recipe called Caramaca. With a name like that, I was thinking it could be a good caramel flavor with the added benefits of Maca, a superfood that helps to build and balance hormones, increase endurance and libido.

This particular recipe is a great example of how I start with someone else’s idea and then upgrade from there. That’s why I’m calling my version Caramaca 3.0 (yes, I used to work in the software industry).

As it turned out, the recipe in the book was a bit too heavy on the maca (and mesquite) for my tastes, in fact the whole bar tasted really heavy to me. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more in the wintertime, but it’s already in the 90 degree weather here now, so I was looking for a lighter version of caramel, but still packed with superfoods.

My 2.0 version of the recipe was a bit too sweet for me because I did a 1/2 cup of Lucuma Powder in it – a very sweet fruit from Peru that’s sold dried and powdered. Finally, I landed on a taste and texture I really liked with the third version of playing with the ingredients, which I’ll share with you here.

The neat thing is, I might not have come up with this version without a kickstart from the recipe book. Following Kate Wood’s original recipe gave me a sense of proportion of dry to wet ingredients to get the texture I wanted, and then I just started mixing and matching from there. Even what may seem like a failure in the kitchen can turn into amazingness.

Caramaca 3.0

1/4 Cup Lucuma Powder

1/2 Cup Warrior Powder

1 Tbsp Maca

1 Tbsp Vanilla Bean Ground (or Vanilla Extract)

1/8 tsp SunFire Salt

6 Dates (about 1/2-3/4 Cup)

2 Tbsp Vanilla Agave Nectar

1/2 Cup Cashews (soaked and rinsed and drained)

1/2 Cup Coconut Oil (melted)

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Mango Sorbet

I love the refreshing sweet tangy flavor of store-bought mango sorbet, and now I’ve discovered it’s super easy to make it at home – and even tastier.

I like to make about a pint’s worth because it fills up my used plastic yogurt or hummus containers that are easy for holding home-made ice-creams and sorbets. Here are the basic proportions:

2 Cups pure water

2/3 Cup Vanilla Agave Nectar

4 Cups Frozen Chopped Mangoes (about 4 Champagne mangoes or 2 larger Kent mangoes)

Blend all ingredients until smooth in a high powered blender (like a Vitamix). You may require dividing the recipe in half and blending twice. Consume immediately or pour into containers and freeze for later. It scoops out easily.

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Chocolate Sauce & Raspberry Sauce

Raw Chocolate Sauce & Raw Raspberry Sauce

At our recent Raw Superfood Dinner & Class we served up our favorite Raw Cheesecake with raw chocolate and raspberry sauces on the plate. These sauces are super quick and easy to make and can be used on, well anything, especially great on your fingers for licking off.

Raw Chocolate Sauce

½ Cup Cacao Powder

¼ Cup Coconut Oil (melted)

¼ Cup Vanilla Agave Nectar

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Put the cacao powder in a small mixing bowl and make sure it doesn’t have any lumps. If you find any, press them against the side of the bowl with a spoon to separate them.

Add the melted coconut oil and agave and stir or whisk until smooth. Keep this at room temperature so that it’s easy to drizzle or pour.

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