Even though I’m usually not a fan of sweets other than chocolate, recently I’ve had a major craving for pastries and baked goods. I think that I have Instagram and Pinterest to blame for my newfound sweet tooth, since I’m constantly being bombarded with pictures of delicious food over social media. Unfortunately, these days the weather in California is way too hot for me to even think about turning on the oven in my kitchen. In order to curve my craving for sweets, this weekend I decided to adapt a recipe for a Vegan Jewel Fruit Tart with Caramel Filling that I had made a while back for my friends’ New Year’s party. I love that this recipe is perfect for hot weather because it is super easy to make and your refrigerator takes the place of an oven.
As you can probably tell from the title of this post, my adaptation didn’t turn out quite as I expected. As I was experimenting with making the crust, I realized that the mixture that I had made had a more crumbly texture than the one in the original recipe. Since this blog is all about experimenting, instead of starting all over, I decided to keep the crust as is in order to see what I came up with. The result was this delicious Vegan Mixed Berry and Caramel Crumble that I now have the pleasure of sharing with you.
CRUST/CRUMBLE BASE
2 cups of walnuts
1/2 cup of shredded coconut
1 and 1/2 cups of pitted dates
CARAMEL MIXTURE
1/4 cup of almond butter
1/4 cup of maple syrup
1/4 cup of melted coconut oil
1/2 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
TOPPING
Fresh of frozen berries of your choice
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Blend 2 cups of walnuts, 1/2 cup of shredded coconut, and 1 and 1/2 cups of pitted dates in a food processor until the mixture forms a paste-like texture.
2. Pour the mixture unto a greased pan and press it against the bottom of the pan. Refrigerate this for 2 hours to allow the crumble base to harden.
3. To make the caramel mixture, blend 1/4 cup of almond butter, 1/4 cup of maple syrup, 1/4 cup of coconut oil, 1/2 tsp of cinnamon and 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract until smooth. Then, pour the mixture over the walnut and date crust.
4. When ready to serve, place fresh or frozen berries on top of the mixture (If you let the berries sit on top of the crumble base for too long, the mixture might get soggy). You can serve the berry crumble alone, or with a side of ice cream.
I hope that you like this recipe and that you find time to make it at home. If you do decide to make this at home, please leave me a comment and let me know how it turns out.
Sincerely,
Helen Grace