I’ll be serving up awesome dishes from the menu of my imaginary vegan B&B all month long.
Listen my loves, you deserve the best.
You deserve to come home to a warm cup of apple cider, a pile of deliciously, juicy novels and a lovely chocolate covered caramel on your pillow.
I know some people are delighted by the sparkles of diamonds, or the glistening of gold, for me it is the sheen of a perfectly tempered truffle. If the inside is a gooey caramel, I may need a few minutes to myself to recover my composure.
If you check a calendar you’ll find that Canadian Thanksgiving passed a few weeks ago and the American holiday is still weeks away – but if you could pretend for a second that we were all sitting together at a big table, grasping each others hands and you turned to me and asked “what are you thankful for”, I would have to respond “cashew caramels”. Because I think you’re pretty fantastic, I’ve decided that you deserve a taste of what has my heart all a flutter.
Hopefully when you bite into the one waiting for you on your pillow, you’ll have to agree, these caramels are worth your gratitude.
I can’t imagine much I’d prefer to find in a tiny gold box perched on my pillow.
Ingredients
- 1 cup cacao paste, chopped finely
- 1 cup cacao butter, chopped finely
- 1/4 cup maple syrup, at room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup date paste*
- 1 cup cashew butter (made from 2 cups raw cashews in the food processor)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
Instructions
- Melt the cacao paste and cacao butter together in a medium bowl using a dehydrator or a double boiler.
- Once melted add the maple syrup and vanilla extract. Return to the heat for 5 minutes.
- Pour evenly into a chilled chocolate mold. Allow to sit for 30 seconds and then pour off the excess chocolate (leaving just a thin layer lining the mold).
- Chill for 10 minutes.
- Combine the date paste, cashew butter, vanilla extract and salt in the food processor. Blend until well mixed.
- Fill each chocolate lined mold with the date mixture. Add a thin coating of chocolate to the top of each mold. Chill in the freezer for 1-hour. Remove the chocolates from the mold and enjoy.
- Store in the freezer.
- Makes 25-30 small chocolate caramels.
*Date paste – I make date paste by soaking pitted dates until they are soft in warm water. Draining the water and adding the dates to a food processor. I blend the dates into a thick paste, adding water only as required and just 1 TBSP at a time.
You could easily make the chocolate for these treats by melting down chocolate chips or a chocolate bar that you have on hand. There is no need to temper raw chocolate to enjoy this deliciousness.
I hope you have a moment today that makes you feel loved and appreciated – even if it requires you to place a piece of chocolate on your pillow yourself. xo
p.s. For yesterday’s muffins I drizzled some of this cashew caramel on top for an extra special morning experience. It was awesome.
