This recipe was inspired by a dessert that my new next door neighbour, Matti Blackman, brought over… and her recipe was inspired by a recipe from her friend’s website: holyhealthiness.com… so I don’t take complete credit for this!
Mine turned out really well and was a real rich and delicious treat.
For those who are following the Freedom Weight Loss program the amount of cashews in one serving (about 1/16 of pie) is equal to your daily allowance of nuts/seeds… so unless you’re going to bypass nuts/seeds for the day, then you might want to skip this recipe, and try something with a lower calorie density like Chocolate Cherry Nice Cream Pie instead (it’s mostly fruit!). However if you are looking for a whole food, plant-based, unprocessed alternative to many of the sugary, oily, processed desserts then this is your dessert.
I’m very into textures and this pie checked off some of my favourite texture boxes:
- The crust, a blend of walnuts, dates, and shredded coconut, is kind of chewy.
- The cashew cream… well… is creamy, kind of like a well frozen ice cream bar.
- And the frozen fruit on top was a bit like biting into a popsicle – hard, but not too hard.
It’s advisable to let the pie defrost for about 10 minutes which makes it easier to cut. But I also nibbled on some right out of the freezer and it was still really good. I didn’t try letting it thaw beyond about 15 minutes, but my assumption is that the cream might get too soft and frozen fruit would get mushy.
I used a spring form pan, but my neighbour used a shallow glass dish and that was fine too. I like the spring form pan because it’s easy to work with, and the product looks beautiful.
CRUST
1 cup of pitted dates
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/8 tsp Himalayan salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Place all ingredients in food processor fitted with an s-blade. Blend well. Mixture should look like a crumble. Press crumble mixture into the bottom of springform pan. I didn’t use any oil or parchment paper, the pie separated quite easily from the base of the pan.
FILLING
2 cups of cashews soaked for at least one hour; best to soak over night, which allows the cashews to soften
1 cup of pitted dates soaked for at least one hour; best to soak over night, which allows the dates to soften
1/4 cup of date soaking water
1/2 cup almond milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
Place all ingredients in food processor fitted with an s-blade. Blend well. Scrape down the sides, and continue mixing. You may need to scrape down the sides about 3-4 times to get an even texture. Mixture should be very creamy. Pour the filling over the crust, and smooth out with a rubber spatula.
FRUIT TOPPING
Here is your carte-blanche – put whatever fruits you fancy. If you have fresh fruit on hand, then use fresh fruit. Keep in mind that some fruits will freeze really hard and may not be ideal, like melons, apples, pears. Recommended fresh fruits are blueberries, pomegranate seeds, pineapple, mango, strawberries, and kiwi.
If you don’t have fresh fruit, or if you’re looking for a quicker result, then use frozen fruit as I did. Try frozen blueberries, strawberries, mango, pineapple, cherries.
Assemble your choice of fruits in a decorative fashion by starting with the outer pie with one fruit variety, then working your way towards the middle, with each “circle” a different a fruit. Or simply toss your frozen fruit and sprinkle them, but if you go this route, you’ll want to slightly nudge the fruit into the cream to ensure it sets in the cream.
Place completed pie in the freezer. Remove 10-15 minutes before serving.