Super Hero Bliss Balls – Superfoods kicking butt

Posted on February 18, 2012 by vibrantearth

These ones were the hit at the Prana New Year Festival 2012 ‘Chocolate Bar’ at the Barn. Having arrived here you might have been looking around on the web for a decent Bliss Ball recipe that didn’t just sport some nuts and dates rolled into a ball. I’ve been in your position and couldn’t find any either that deserved the ‘Bliss’ with the Balls.

So here is a proven recipe that has some serious ‘Bliss Potential’. They are a great treat, last a while in the fridge and can be altered to have a different dusting (try Mesquite or Lucuma), the goji berries replaced with Acai, etc. Just make a few batches of this recipe and then start playing. I would love to hear from you. And while you are on it, please take a few pictures, as I haven’t any good ones of these yet 🙂

Super Heroes as supporting act to Müsli slices

Super Hero Bliss Balls

A lunchbox treat for Super Heroes!

Makes a few

2c dried shredded coconut
2c Cashews, dry, ground into flour
2T Chia seeds
1/2c Goji berries, soaked
1/3 c date paste (dates blended into a paste with just enough water)
1T Maca powder
3T raw cacao powder
½ t Vanilla extract
2T raw cacao nibs

1-2 T raw cacao powder for dusting

Combine the coconut, cashew flour, chia seeds, maca powder, 3 T of raw cacao powder and the cacao nibs in a large mixing bowl.
In a food processor pulse the goji berries then add to the date paste. Now add the moist ingredients, incl. Vanilla extract, to the dry mix in the bowl. With your hands mix everything well.
With a 1 T measuring spoon scoop even amounts of bliss ball mix into your hand and roll into evenly round balls.
Dust each ball individually by loosely rolling it in raw cacao powder in a separate bowl. Let it gently roll around in your hand to apply the cacao powder firmly to it and to shake off any excess powder.
Refrigerate for 1 hour then place on a platter and serve – or hide in the Super Hero’s lunch box.

Enjoy, and try keeping up with the demand!

Rene

🙂

Prana, Raw Cheese Cakes and a word on Raw Food Blenders

Posted on January 13, 2012 by vibrantearth

Yep, the Prana New Year 2012 Festival is over. It was stunning! Despite the rain we had a Blast supplying the ‘One World Café’ with raw desserts. Jack and René arrived well ahead of the crowds and went straight to work making raw granola, our vegan chocolate müsli slice, chocolate walnuts, and raw cheese cakes. Jack truly refined the art of crust making during the festival. In the end we counted a total of 18 raw cheese cakes made and sold. By the time the festival started we had 16 in the freezer waiting to be served and just topped it up with two more in the end. The selection of flavours we had were: lemon, lemon vanilla, lime vanilla, goji apricot, chocolate peppermint, chocolate chai, spicy chai, passionfruit vanilla, goji chocolate, maple chocolate and layered as well as swirled combinations of the above.

Lydia joined us a day later and put her loving energy into our Super Hero Bliss Balls as well as tied up all the loose ends around our raw food operation in the back kitchen as well as lovingly tending the front dessert counter.

We had an AMAZING crew volunteering in the kitchen and helping us occasionally. The groovy music in our part of the kitchen seemed to help a bit 😉

from top clockwise: peppermint choc, ginger cashew, goji cashew, plain choc and cashew, pure choc orange

Once the festival was under way we also supplied the nightly chocolate bar with a selection of our raw chocolate buttons in various flavours. Jack became great at making a vibrant-looking strawberry chocolate torte (which was a mission to cut :-)) and we also sent out the occasional Orgasmic Blueberry Pie.

Overall we had a splendid time in the kitchen and at the festival. Having prepared so much in advance we had enough time to attend a few concerts and music happenings when the rain stopped 🙂 Jack was out networking and jamming with great enthusiasm. Lydia and I enjoyed ourselves at Caitlin and Sika‘s concerts, laughter yoga and a late night drumming circle in the large tipi – which was out of this world!!!

Yes, the Raw Food Blenders!

We had three different models in our prep zone: Jack’s late model Vitamix, Maya’s LexSun (replaced by OmniBlend brand nowadays – see below) and our trusted BlendTec Total Blender.

They all performed extremely well. Yet making raw cheese cakes in series production really showed the different models’ strengths. Guess, which one tolerated the most ‘abuse’/hard work?! Maya it was your darling LexSun blender! After the VitaMix and BlendTec had both requested a holiday in the freezer to reset their over heat fuse the LexSun completed the job without complaint. Very impressive!

The strategy René followed in the end to make the raw cheese cake filling was to blend the whole batch in the LexSun – somewhere between 1.2-1.5 liter of thick cashew mix. After everything had mixed well and the cashews were kind of finely broken down I split the batch and finished it in two parts in the BlendTec – which definitely achieved the smoothest texture – 750ml as optimum fill level.

The cool thing about this strategy was that it allowed for colourful swirly cakes with different flavours combined in one crust. The most popular one was the spicy chai and chocolate one.

These days the LexSun is replaced in New Zealand by the identical OmniBlend machines at a more reasonable price. Make sure you get the new jar with it – which is a larger copy of the BlendTec jar. Perfect combination! This on here.

For a generous 15% off the listed prices on the OmniBlend website with free shipping in NZ apply this discount code: RAFS2014

Oh, did I mention that we will be teaching a Raw Cheese Cake class?

See you there!

René

🙂

Chocolate Haystacks – a quick and easy crowd pleaser for the holidays

Posted on December 23, 2011 by vibrantearth

This recipe was inspired by our dear friend Elaina Love of Pure Joy Planet.

It’s one of those things you make once and then just keep doing until they become so familiar that you don’t even require the recipe. After a while you replace the thread coconut with soaked, dehydrated and coarsely ground pecans, add some cocoa nibs and cinnamon to the mixture… you know how it goes 😉

At the Wise Cicada Café we produce them in big batches on over-sized baking trays, pressed firmly, chilled…

…and then cut into 128 individual pieces. Our guests just love them with their coffee or tea. What you see here is only half a tray (cutting board too small :-))

And here we go:

Chocolate Haystacks

Makes about 30 piece

3 c or 250g thread coconut (or soaked, dehydrated and then coarsely ground pecan nuts)
¾ c organic virgin coconut oil, liquefied
½ c organic cocoa powder (Equagold is offering great stuff too – non-organic though)
¾ c Rapadura® dehydrated cane juice or organic raw sugar
or ½ c agave nectar/maple syrup (the latter goes well with pecans!)
Zest from 1 organic orange or a few drops of high-quality organic essential citrus oil
1 t vanilla extract
¼ t lemon juice
2 T Cocoa nibs, optional
1/2 t organic cinnamon, ground, optional

Method

If you are using organic raw sugar or Rapadura, blend it in a dry blender jar into a powder.
In a bowl whisk all the ingredients except the thread coconut together until the batter emulsifies.
Now, with a spatula or your hand, mix the batter in with the shredded coconut.
With a teaspoon and the fingers of your other hand shape into small haystacks and place on a tray.
Place the tray in the refrigerator or freezer to cool down and solidify the haystacks. They will become soft at temperatures over 26°C so serve them cold!

Voila! Enjoy and happy holidays!

Lydia and I will be in the Cocomandel – ah Coromandel 🙂 catering the raw dessert side of the Prana Festival. We might see you there!

René

🙂

Prana New Year Festival 2012 – see you over New Year on the Coromandel!

Posted on December 7, 2011 by vibrantearth

Yes, take your darling and the kids and join us at the Prana New Year Festival 2012 from December 30th, 2011 to January 3rd, 2012!

Just go to: http://prana.co.nz and check it out!

We will be part of the residential kitchen crew at “The Barn” and René will be the chef in charge of the daily dessert selection and raw chocolate creations. Should you have missed us at the 2006 Fresh Festival in the UK – here is your chance to enjoy some seriously yummy raw festival desserts right near you (if you live in NZ).

To top it all off you camp in one of New Zealand’s most scenic areas, have some top notch artists and entertainers perform and an amazing beach just steps away. Only a few weeks ago we happened to be on the Coromandel and stopped by to say ‘Hello!’ to Maya and Dan at Prana. We were blown away by the setting of the festival land – an old-grown coastal pine forest right behind the most serene beach. Heaven!

All right, at the festival we will share that beach with about 1500 other attendants – trusting they won’t show up all at the same time when we go swimming 😉

Here is a little teaser from Cathedral Cove, further North on the Peninsula.

So we are looking forward to seeing you at Prana over New Year!

René
🙂

Psst! René’s cakes and desserts are available for sale at the Wise Cicada Café in Newmarket too.

René Archner Workshops, Food & More

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