Friday, October 31, 2008

Keeping kids away from SUGAR

This year we decided to make some raw, sugar-free healthy sweets for the kids for Halloween so they don't junk out on gargage on Halloween....

Though they are going to go Trick-or-treating as well, but they have agreeed to trade all their candy off to Ganesha (their favourite Indian deity) who is going to bring them some presents in return ;)

So here are the sweets we have made:

NOTE: Make sure in all the recipes below, you want to use the least amount of Honey or any other moistening ingredient as possible, as you want the sweets to be able to harden and keep their shape. Too little: they will be crumbly, too much they will stay quite pastey... If you spread them out on a cookie sheet, or layer them, you might want to leave them in the fridge for them to harden a bit.

I Carob-Flax

1 cup raw carob powder
1/2 cup flax seeds freshly ground
Raw Honey
Water

Sweeten it with raw honey and add water to moisten it to be able to hold form. It shuouldn't feel crumbly at all. but don't make it too wet!!!

Now you can either:
roll long rods, roll them in sesame seeds/coconut flakes etc, then cut into disks.
Or
spread it out 1/2 inch thick on a cookie sheet and let it set. (*)

almond on top of flax


II Almond (marzipan)

2 cups raw almonds.
vanilla extract
Raw Honey

Blanch almonds. (put the almonds in water to cover them. Bring the water to a boil and turn the heat off right before it really starts boiling. Peel the almonds right away or they absorb water...
Throw the almonds in the food processor and add 2 tsp vanilla, and process it for 5 minutes until paste like. Add Honey to taste... around 1/2 cup.
Process it again, it will come together, and form a nice moist ball.
You can shape it anyway you would like.
Or you can layer it on top of the carob layer (above *).

almond on top of flax


III Walnut

Do the same with walnuts as you did with almonds.

chocolate on top of walnut


IV Carob "chocolate"

This one, we didn't measure anything, as it was a first time experiment, so you have to guess.... :O
On a double boiler: melt ghee, add lecithin(that one could be optional), carob powder, Honey and some chocolate extract.... The consistancy would be of a thick paste.... Spread it out sepaprately or on top of the walnut paste above (Or keep it separate!)

chocolate on top of walnut

NOTE2: After they have set... cut them out into square or diamond shapes.


ok, after them sitting in the fridge for an hour we cut theminto squares and sampled them...
The walnut on top of "chocolate" turned out excellent!!! The chocolate is fantastic and that recipe s definitely going to go under improvements, (but you can't really improve upon perfection!!!)
The almond paste was really good by itself, but on top of flax-carob, it got overpowered by the flax, and we couldn't really taste it.
Flax one is good by itself though.

walnut on top of chocolate
walnut on top of chocolate
almond on top of flax
almond on top of flax

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