Eating dessert may have once been a fast track to gaining extra pounds, but a new wave of talented chefs is proving you can have your cake and eat it too — guilt free. You’ll love this recipe for pumpkin seed raisin cookies.
If you’re looking to drop a dress size or two, avoiding dessert is usually a great way to start. After all, it’s in lashings of chocolate, cream and layers of cake where all those unhealthy calories lie, waiting to cling to hips and thighs, right? Not necessarily, say some of the world’s leading health-focussed chefs and cooks who are redefining what dessert means to the weight-loss world.
Primarily the domain of raw food chefs, healthy desserts literally mean you can have your cake and eat it too, without obsessing over refined sugars, unhealthy fats and bad cholesterol. Made with such ingredients as cashew nuts, coconut, raw chocolate and even avocado, there’s nothing lost in the way of taste, and the body also gets wholefood nutrients—and you stay full for longer.
So tempting are these desserts—from cheesecake to chocolate mousse—that they’re not only helping sweet tooth connoisseurs to lose weight, but also get healthy.
“One of the best things about raw food desserts is that they are 100 per cent guilt free,” says chef Laura Dawn, of Sacred Source Nutrition. “Working as a raw food chef over the years, I’ve learned to find raw, wholefood substitutes for what we’ve come to consider ‘normal’ ingredients… giving up dairy many years ago, I’ve found alternative ways to get that creamy flavor and texture that I sometimes want.”
Laura says hemp seeds make a great creamy alternative, as does coconut meat or butter. She also sings the praises of avocado, explaining it’s a perfect dessert ingredient, as it’s rich in healthy fats, and is a great replacement for oil or butter.
The recipe below was created by Dawn to satisfy her own personal dietary desires, but you would never know it is gluten and dairy-free by the taste!
“I wanted to come up with a raw version of oatmeal raisin cookies, but without oats, gluten, wheat or dairy,” says Laura. “I have to say this recipe that I created comes pretty darn close. I used pumpkin seeds instead of oats and they are quite delicious as an occasional, tasty healthy treat.”
Raw pumpkin seed raisin cookies
Makes about 20–25 cookies.
Essential Kitchen Equipment:
All you will need is a food processor and a food dehydrator. I like to use the Excalibur but there are others on the market to choose from.
Planning for this recipe:
If you would like to make these cookies for a special occasion, you need to plan ahead by soaking 4 cups of pumpkin seeds the night before and also allow 12 hours for dehydrating. I like to time it so that I put the cookies in at night and wake up to warm soft cookies for a breakfast treat.
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup of raw organic honey
- 3 cups organic coconut shred
- 3/4 cup of raisins
- 2 Tablespoons of cinnamon
- 1 Tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice
- 4 cups soaked pumpkin seeds
- 1/2 pound dates
- 2 ounces water
- 2 tablespoons vanilla
- 1/2 cup of raw organic coconut sugar
Directions:
- In a bowl, place 3/4 cup of raw organic honey. If you don’t like to use honey, you can compensate by using more dates.
- Mix the honey and organic coconut shreds with a spoon or fork until thoroughly mixed together.
- Add in raisins, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice, and mix well. Set bowl aside.
- Take half of your 4 cups of soaked pumpkin seeds and place it in the food processor and process until smooth. Add it into your bowl and mix well.
- Process 1/2 pound of dates or 1 packed cup in the food processor with water and vanilla. Process until you get a date paste. Mix into bowl.
- Add raw organic coconut sugar to the cookie dough.
- The best way to mix batters for recipes, in my opinion, is by hand. With clean hands, mix all the ingredients together, with thoughts of loving kindness.
- Sprinkle the remaining whole pumpkin seeds into the mix, and keep mixing with your hands until the batter is evenly distributed.
- Take a dehydrator tray and make small(ish) cookies, about 1–2 inches across. Avoid making them too thick as this will take a lot more time in the dehydrator. I like to make raw cookies the right amount that I would like to eat as a serving snack.
- I fit 4×4 raw cookies on the tray, for a total of 16 evenly spaced raw cookies.
- Place them in the dehydrator at 150 for the first hour, and then reduce temperature to 115. They are ready as soon as you get your desired consistency. Some people like them drier and some gooier. I usually leave mine in for about 12 hours – sampling regularly of course.
Laura’s tip
Most people equate desserts with processed sugar, but it really doesn’t have to be. Eating refined sugar actually depletes the body of minerals, and has a similar addictive quality as other drugs. There’s no reason we need to use refined sugar when we have whole foods like dates to sweeten recipes. Depending on the recipe, I also like to use dried figs or perhaps a little bit of raw, organic coconut sugar. Another great alternative is raw organic local honey, as it is loaded with vitamins and minerals.
Photo courtesy of Laura Dawn.
More healthy eating
Kim Snyder’s glowing green smoothie recipe
Mid-week vegetarian meals
Low-carb dinners
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