Strawberries 25-30, washed and cooled Dark Chocolate 1 Cup Cacao Butter, melted 1 Cup Cacao Power 1/3 Cup Agave Pinch Salt White Chocolate 1 Cup Cashews, soaked 1-8 hours 1/4 Cup Cacao Butter, melted 1/3 Cup Lukuma 1/3 Cup Agave -Prepare the dark chocolate recipe: Add cacao powder to the melted cacao butter and stir until no more lumps remain. Add the agave and salt and stir well -Dip strawberries one at a time, holding onto tails and rotating your hand slightly to create even coverage -Place each strawberry on a non stick tray, close but not touching -Put all white chocolate ingredients into a high speed blender and use a tamper or pulse until creamy -Scoop into a piping bag with smallest available nozzle (you can create your own piping bag by snipping a corner of a strong plastic bag) -Fold or twist the top of the bag to force icing down and squeeze over coated strawberries -Keep in the fridge

Happy Valentines Day everyone!!! That's right, you know it's coming, so whether you love it or love to hate it, there is no escaping 14th of February :)

With my Valentine in Machu Picchu

I just love this day! I love all the tacky decorations and chubby cupids and silly hearts and the commercial hype this day brings. So whether your Valentine is your significant other or a friend or a cat, there is always a reason to feel the looooove... especially with a brand new recipe that I have to share with you today!!!




For the essentials
Blender
Piping bag
8 Medium baking cases
Juicer (optional)

For the Cupcakes
1 x Cup Almond pulp/meal (what is left after making almond milk)
1/2 x Cup Hazelnuts (soaked overnight)
2 x heaped Tbsp Cacao Powder
10 x Pitted Dates (soaked 1 hr-overnight)
1 x Avocado, meat only
2 x heaped Tbsp Coconut butter/oil
2 x heaped Tbsp Raw Honey

- In a blender, put all ingredients apart from the first three
- Blend until creamy, use a tamper or just pulse if you have a standard blender
- Add cacao powder and pulse again
- Either add in the hazelnuts and almond meal to the blender or fold them in with the blended ingredients manually in a separate bowl
-[Tip: you should get a thick dry mousse type of mixture, roll it in your hands, pop into a baking case and gently press it down so it forms a flat surface and looks like a baked muffin]
-Transfer to the fridge while preparing the frosting

For the Red Frosting
1 x Cup Cashews (soaked 1hr- overnight)
10 x Pitted Dates (soaked 1hr- overnight)
2 x Tbsp Coconut butter/oil
1/4 x Cup Beetroot juice (see Tip below)

[Tip: to make the red colouring, juice 1 beetroot or if you either don't have a juicer or like me and want to avoid more cleaning up- just blend enough chopped beetroot (about 2-3) to cover the blade of the blender and then strain]
-Put all ingredients into a blender
-Blend until creamy, either using a tamper or pulsing if you have a standard blender
-If the mixture is too warm from the blade, let it sit to cool down, before piping
-Transfer the mixture into a piping bag with a medium sized nozzle and pipe in a spiral motion inwards
-Transfer into the fridge while preparing the heart shape

For the Chocolate hearts
Use my Basic Dark Chocolate Recipe

[Tip: To achieve solid heart shapes like mine, so they don't run or break easily, add more Cacao Powder to the recipe]
- Prepare a board with tin foil or baking paper over it
- Transfer all the chocolate into a piping bag with the smallest nozzle
- Draw heat shapes with a long end, so you can easily stick it into the cupcake later
- Transfer to the fridge for 10 minutes, then firmly press the shapes into each ready cupcake


So how do you like them?

Now is probably a good time to let you know that I am working on my next book, that will be all about chocolate and full of my best and favourite recipes, that I have been compiling over the last couple of years!

What chocolate flavour/recipe/type do you absolutely love?

Let me know in the comments below and if I haven't already got it on my list, but choose to include in the book, I will email you the book as soon as its ready in April!

Go on, tell me below...





UPDATE: The eBook I mentioned above is now out! Check out 'Seduced- Raw Chocolate Recipes to get very excited for'>>

 [Moi, Elliot, Jenny, Grant and Lily on 4th September by the river in Beautiful Richmond Park]

This year I decided to brave up and finally stand infront of that camera for what is now my very First YouTube Recipe video. I watch and I cringe. But the Fudge Brownie recipe is so worth it! SO worth it, so here we go...

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99HycNzDkQI[/embed]

1 Cup Walnuts

1 Cup Pecan Nuts

1 Cup Dates (soaked in water first if too dry)

1/2 Cup Cacao Powder

1/2 Cup Coconut Butter/oil (melted)

1/2 Cup Cacao Powder

2 Tbsp Agave (or to taste)

Pinch salt Optional: Raspberries

- Process the nuts to a fine powder in the food processer with an S Blade

- Add dates, one at a time

- Sprinkle over with all of the Cacao Powder and process again (note you may need to scrape the mixture with spatular off the sides so there is always something over the blade)

- Press the mixture well into a container lined with plastic film or a pie dish

- The best way to melt the coconut butter in in a Dehydrator for 30 minutes. If you need this done quickly, double boiler will be your perfect option- just no boiling water to keep the 'Raw' elements

- Add in the Cacao powder and stir in well

- Add Agave and salt and make sure all ingredients are well combined

- Pour the chocolate sauce on top of the pressed base and top with optional raspberries

- Freeze for 10 minutes or refrigerate for 30-60mins before cutting (don't forget to remove from the freezer)

And just another recipe that is so much... Better Raw

And here's the video on YouTube:

“The Queen and other members of the Royal Family attend”… “Invitations are not transferable”….. ”Due to a limited number of invitations available, the Royal Garden Party may only be attended once” Now imagine my excitement when Elliot and I received this in the mail: The Queen!! We are meeting the Queen! At! Her! House! The envelope our invite came in was so thick, it literally looked like a rectangular box. Not only was the invitation made of some heavy duty  cardboard, but two books of instructions, rules and dress code regulations were also enclosed. I read these very carefully. Throughout the print, “phones turned off, cameras prohibited” was mentioned exactly Five times. This could only mean one thing - there were to be some seriously good photo opportunities! If this really is my “may only be attended once” opportunity, it is almost worth losing an arm and a leg for, not to mention a camera. So Panasonic Lumix in the bag’s secret pocket and off to sip tea with Liz we go. We did start off on an apprehensive side, even a tad nervous taking photos outside the Palace, while queuing up. Then going through the Palace to the private gardens, all ideas I may have had about a career as a Spy went right out the window. No chance of getting away with anything there. In the garden, it was a totally different story. We began sneakily snapping away, until confidence grew so high that fun activities like press ups in front of the Palace started to emerge and even the Queen and the Duke popped up in our pictures!   Overall it was a beautiful and memorable event. The Queen was the sweetest little host and her catering was worthy of its own Art Gallery. Not much Raw Food in sight, however I think I may have spotted a shaving of a cucumber poking out of the finger sandwiches and a strawberry under all the glaze. Nevertheless it all looked delightfully appetizing and perfectly minuscule. I too wanted some Raw Food sweeties, that are delightfully appetizing and perfectly minuscule, and since I have been getting some enquiries for recipes, this is one that has come up already four times during last week alone from different people via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn:

RAW FOOD REESE’S PEANUT BUTTER CUPS

I have never been a big fan of peanut butter myself and living in UK, we don’t even have Reese’s products to do a taste experiment. But I am pretty good at calculating a conversion of ‘not so good contents’ into healthy Raw Food ingredients and Google is pretty good at providing me with any product's ingredient list of these ‘not so good contents’.