Cherry-nut fudge for your Valentine!

[Sharon in Colorado]

Cherry-nut fudge
by Sharon Oliver
from the ebook "Life by Chocolate"
www.rawstepbystep.com

1 cup raw cacao nibs, ground, or equal amounts of raw carob or organic cocoa powder
10 dates, pitted
3 oz raisins
6 dried figs
½ cup honey and/or agave nectar, or to taste
1 tablespoon vanilla
¼ cup mesquite powder, optional
¾ cup cashew butter
1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
1 cup dried sour cherries, coarsely chopped

Process dates, raisins, figs, honey/agave and vanilla until smooth. This may take a while, with frequent scraping down of your processor bowl.

Add cacao, mesquite & cashew butter and then transfer to a bowl and continue mixing with hands to combine. Mixture will be VERY thick.

With clean hands massage in nuts and cherries, and then transfer to a parchment-lined pan (8 x 8 or 9 x 9).

Freeze for a couple of hours to harden, then remove and let sit a while before cutting into little squares.

[Mishka]

Wow, Sharon this sounds great:)! Thankyou so much for sharing!!!
I was wondering ...where do you get mesquite powder and the dry sour cherries?
This will be such a fun suprise for my dh he loves fugde and cherries!!
I'm salivating (why do I look at recipes when I am juice fasting??lol)
Michelle

[SedonaSun]

If you have a Wild Oats store around, check with them. Ours here has a wall of shelves with jars of all sorts of powders and other goodies. I'm not sure if mesquite powder was one of them, but they had lots of stuff I've never, ever heard of.

[Lissy]

Where can you purchase raw cacao? :o

[tracyinfo]

I can buy raw cocoa at health food store in San Francisco.

[SamL]

That sounds delicious, I can almost taste it now!

Thank you for sharing.

[Sharon in Colorado]

I got the dried sour cherries from Whole Foods. It was around Thanksgiving time when I bought them and I had some left over so I used them up. I also had cashew butter that I wanted to use up as well, which I bought in the bulk section at Whole Foods (it was in a big vat and I measured it in one of those cup sized plastic containers).

The mesquite powder and cacao I bought through a co-op. They were purchased via Nature's First Law through the co-op, so you can either get it on line (for a bit more) or if you have a co-op around, you can have them call either NFL or another one of those places to try to get it at a co-op price.

Also, I didn't measure the raisins, I used a 3 oz bag of organic raisins that I bought from a store. It looked like it was about 1/4-1/2 a cup. You may have to play with your measurements a little. It should be thick but mine was so thick it was slowing down the food processor!

After I cut them into little squares I stored them in the fridge in a container, because they are denser & chewier when they're cold.

If you are planning on getting into recipes, I highly recommend getting that raw cacao. I got the 16 oz bag of nibs, they are already peeled for you, and they are organic and raw. This is the first time I've ground it into a powder. Usually I use the food processor and it leaves some crunchy bits and doesn't get all the flavor out of the beans.

Hope that helps!

[SamL]

one word ..... YUMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!

I tried this recipe today, a slight variation, I rolled the mixture into balls and rolled in coconut, truffle style.

My whole family loved them, i'll have to make more for my daughters birthday tomorrow.

[Sharon in Colorado]

I'm glad you liked it with the coconut. I purposely ommited it because I've been using so much coconut in all my chocolate treats, I thought it would be nice without. Maybe I'll try doing the coconut next time I make them.

I cut about 12 teeny tiny little itsy bitsy squares and brought them along with some of my other things I've been making to the raw support meeting tonight. They were the first to go! I'm almost out of cacao now - whew a lot of the ingredients are on the pricey side, but so worth it. But, it is still probably way cheaper than buying a pound of fudge at a candy store!

[sharie_lush]

Is it caocao in the recipe or cocoa?
Thanks!
Sharie :)

[Sharon in Colorado]

It is raw cacao beans. I'm sure you can use cocoa or carob though.

[honeybee joy]

Is this recipe posted somewhere else? :confused:

[Pansy]

Honeybee joy.....I don't see it either! Was wondering that myself!

Pansy

[Sunshine9]

Yeah! I want some cherry nut fudge!! where'd it go?

[Sharon in Colorado]

Sorry - I had removed it when I started on my ebooks but it just doesn't seem fair to be teased like that does it? My bad.

So here it is - I have another variation and other chocolate recipes in my ebook "Life By Chocolate".

P.S. I stopped using the mesquite powder because I have a reaction to it, so it is optional, and cocoa or carob can be used alternatively in lieu of the cacao nibs in equal parts here.

Enjoy!


Cherry-nut fudge
by Sharon Oliver
from the ebook "Life by Chocolate"
www.rawstepbystep.com

1 cup raw cacao nibs, ground, or equal amounts of raw carob or organic cocoa powder
10 dates, pitted
3 oz raisins
6 dried figs
½ cup honey and/or agave nectar, or to taste
1 tablespoon vanilla
¼ cup mesquite powder, optional
¾ cup cashew butter
1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
1 cup dried sour cherries, coarsely chopped

Process dates, raisins, figs, honey/agave and vanilla until smooth. This may take a while, with frequent scraping down of your processor bowl.

Add cacao, mesquite & cashew butter and then transfer to a bowl and continue mixing with hands to combine. Mixture will be VERY thick.

With clean hands massage in nuts and cherries, and then transfer to a parchment-lined pan (8 x 8 or 9 x 9).

Freeze for a couple of hours to harden, then remove and let sit a while before cutting into little squares.

[Shona]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who seems to have missed out. LOL

It did sound good, didn't it?!

[Pansy]

Thank You, Sharon!

It sounds really great!

Warm Blessings,

Pansy

[Sharon in Colorado]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who seems to have missed out. LOL

It did sound good, didn't it?!

Sorry again - I deleted it when it was such an old thread already, I never imagined it would get kicked back up to the top again.

I guess I should have anticipated it though, a lot of these old threads are getting kicked back up. It's a retro raw world on here!

[Shona]

We seem to have posted at the same time ... :)

Thanks for reposting the recipe! Canadian Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I was looking for something new to make. Yum.