Date and cashew fudge and adventures

One of my friends lives about an hour out of Sydney, so every now and then I go on an adventure to Elderslie. It’s really not that far away from where I live, but it’s so different. There are farms and horses and farm fresh veggies at ridiculously reasonable prices. There are some pretty cute cafes, and I’m slowly working my way through each of them.

It’s beautiful as well – because of the slight climate difference, the cherry blossoms in Sally’s area start earlier than they do in mine.

And around Christmas the jacaranda blooms come out with such vibrancy that it takes your breath away; they carpet the streets with their purple, silken flowers. The reason I’m telling you about her is because she’s a little bit of a health-nut, and I made this dessert to take to her. She runs an Instagram account dedicated to raw/vegan/healthy food…her page is pretty much the antithesis of Baking with Gab!

This little fudge, however, kind of blurs the line between our two worlds – it’s not quite as healthy as her chia pancakes, but it’s not as chocolatey and condensed milk-filled as my most recent chocolate fudge.

Date and cashew fudge:

• 1 ¾ cups chopped dates
• 3 tbsp boiling water
• 2 cups salted roasted cashews
• 1 ½ cups desiccated coconut
• ¼ cup coconut oil
• ½ cup golden syrup
• ½ cup cocoa

Icing:

• ½ cup golden syrup
• ¼ cup coconut oil
• ½ cup cocoa

Grab your chopped dates and put them in a bowl with the boiling water. Give them a bit of a stir so that they all soak up a little bit of it and soften. Leave them for five minutes while you start on the cashews.

If your cashews are super salty (as many pre-salted cashews are), pop them in a strainer and give them a few shakes to get rid of the excess. Blend your cashews up until they resemble fat breadcrumbs. Be careful not to over-blitz them, otherwise you’ll end up with cashew butter.

Transfer your cashew flour to a mixing bowl.

Pour your softened dates (excess water and all) and one cup of the coconut into your blender. Blend for about 30 seconds so that you get a paste. I left a couple of little chunks of date in my paste, so don’t worry about blending it into oblivion.

Transfer your date paste into the same bowl as the cashew flour and mix well. Add in the rest of the desiccated coconut and the coconut oil and mix well. It may take a little while to get the larger lumps of coconut oil out, so mix patiently. Add in the golden syrup and cocoa and mix until combined.

Grab a loaf tin and grease the sides with a little coconut oil, then cut out rectangles of baking paper to fit on the base and the two longest sides. I used a silicone loaf tin to make removal easier, but you can use a regular loaf tin as well.

Scoop your mixture into the lined tin and press it down with a spatula. Make sure you press it down good and proper, you don’t want any air pockets in there. As you’re pressing, you may get some coconut oil pooling at the top, just blot this off with a paper towel.

Pop this in the freezer for at least 30 minutes.

While your fudge is in the freezer whip together your icing by throwing all of your ingredients into a bowl and whisking for a few minutes. If you coconut oil is looking a little lumpy, warm up the bowl of the mixer with your hands to melt them out.

When your fudge is firm, invert the tin and pop the loaf tin and onto your serving plate. Spoon the icing in a thick layer onto the top of the loaf and pop it into the fridge for at least 15 minutes to set.  The icing is quite heavy, so it should run down the edges slightly and smooth itself out beautifully.

Slice into small pieces, this baby is rich!

If you wanted to make this authentically raw, you’d replace the roasted cashews with raw. And if you wanted to make it even healthier, you could substitute the cacao powder for cocoa, and the golden syrup for natural maple syrup. There is no need to do this though, it’s perfectly delicious as is!