Based on a request for a chocolate dessert that is actually healthy, I’m happy to share this simple-to-prepare, delicious, healthy Avocado Chocolate Pudding. This dessert features a few superfoods as toppings for the pudding: Goji berries, raw cacao nibs, and hemp seeds.
Simple Recipe from “A New View of Healthy Eating” by Melanie Albert
Chocolate Avocado Pudding
Incredible, rich, and creamy vegan chocolate pudding will delight everyone. Make it for dessert or an after-work or after-school snack. Once you’ve made this avocado pudding, experiment by adding some extras, such as bananas, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, homemade nut milk, and freshly ground spices, like cinnamon and nutmeg.
SIMPLE INGREDIENTS
2 ripe avocados
4 Medjool dates, pitted and sliced
1 tsp vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean, scraped
1/4 cup raw cacao powder
1 cups water
Avocado Pudding Mise en Place
SIMPLE STEPS
Place all ingredients in food processor or high-speed blender.
Blend on high for about 2 minutes.
Stop and scrape down sides of food processor or blender, if needed.
Blend for another 2 minutes or until completely pureed and smooth.
Refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
Enjoy topped with goji berries, cacao nibs, hemp seeds,citrus, raw cacao powder.
Avocado Pudding: Ingredients into Food Processor
Avocado Chocolate Pudding. Superfoods.Add Edible Flowers & Raw Cacao Powder to your Plate.
By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition, Intuitive Cooking Expert, and Award-Winning Cookbook Author
Excited to share with you the Aromatic Apple Berry Pie to enjoy creating with your family and friends. This dessert is an incredible aromatherapy culinary experience with hand-grinding spices, including cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and cardamom.
We created this dessert with 4 different varieties of apples at our hands-on Holiday Dessert cooking class at The Farm at South Mountain, and it was “perfect”. Such a beautiful, warming fall / winter dessert.
Links to the other plant-based dessert recipe prepared at the class:
Aromatic Apple Berry Crisp with Freshly Ground Spices
This apple berry crisp is one of my all-time favorites. From mindfully hand-grinding and enjoying the aromatherapy of freshly ground warming spices, along with the aromatherapy of the apples sautéing in the spices, to memories of eating pies when I was a child, this dessert is outstanding. Enjoy the process of setting up your mise en place, cooking, and enjoying this dish with your family and friends.
Topping
Simple Ingredients
1 cup rolled oats
½ cup almonds, walnuts, or pecans, sliced
¼ cup maple sugar
1 tsp cinnamon, fresh ground
1 tsp nutmeg, fresh ground
1 tsp cardamom seeds, fresh ground
1/4 cup grapeseed oil
Simple Steps
Hand-grind cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom.
Mix all dry ingredients for topping until well combined.
Pour in grapeseed oil and mix.
Filling
Simple Ingredients
5 apples, sliced
2 pears, sliced
1 cup raspberries
1 cup blackberries
3 tbsp grapeseed oil
¼ cup maple sugar
1 tsp cinnamon, fresh ground
1 tsp nutmeg, fresh ground
1 tsp cardamom seeds, fresh ground
½ tsp cloves, fresh ground
1 orange, juiced and zested
1 lemon, juiced and zested
Simple Steps
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Place sliced apples and pears in a large sauté pan.
Turn heat to medium and add remaining filling ingredients.
Cook apples and pears for 15-20 minutes until slightly soft; stir occasionally.
Pour cooked apples with sauce into 8-inch by 8-inch baking dish.
Top with oats topping, raspberries, and blackberries.
Bake on middle oven rack for 30-35 minutes.
Plate and enjoy!
So glad Nathalia from Brazil was in town to capture some fun photos from our Dessert Cooking Class at The Farm. Thanks!
The beauty of the apples…and, all the mindful chopping…
The zesting and juicing of the lemons and oranges.
The aromatherapy of the cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom…And, beautiful teamwork!
A few additional fun photos from the class…
Apple cutting knife skills with Melanie Albert.More cinnamon aromatherapy.The beautiful apple crisp, and a batch of hummus…ready to be enjoyed.
Thanks to Natural Awakenings AZ magazine for featuring my Plant-Based Chocolate Pie on the cover and Plant-Based Dessert recipes in the January 2019 issue.
Natural Awakenings Arizona, January 2019Natural Awakenings Arizona, January 2019. Start the New Year Off Right
Purchase Melanie Albert’s award-winning cookbook,“A New View of Healthy Eating: Simple Intuitive Cooking with Real Whole Foods”
PUBLIC COOKING CLASSES IN PHOENIX, ARIZONA
Phoenix friends…hope you or your kids can join us at one of our hands-on intuitive cooking classes this season… Vision Board & Appetizers, Foods for Addiction Recovery, Spring Farm-to-Table, Raw Farm-to-Table, and Kids Food Art.
By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition, Intuitive Cooking Expert, and Award-Winning Cookbook Author
Continuing to share with you delicious, beautiful, and “healthy” plant-based desserts: Berry Cashew Cream Pie, Chocolate Goji Berry Cream Pie, Aromatic Apple Berry, and Raw Carrot Cake. The desserts feature berries, chocolate, goji berries, and amazing aromatic culinary experiences with hand-grinding spices, including cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and cardamom.
We created these desserts at our hands-on Holiday cooking class at The Farm at South Mountain and I have to say they were all so created with so much mindfulness and heart. Plus, they were delicious.
Today’s dessert, featured on the cover the the January 2019 issue of Natural Awakenings Arizona, is the Chocolate Goji Berry Cream Pie. Links to the other plant-based dessert recipes:
Try this simple chocolate dessert recipe for your family and friends. This gourmet-quality pie is so much fun to make and is beautiful and delicious. Learn to quickly and easily melt chocolate chips right in your oven. Enjoy the pie with superfood goji berries. If you have extra chocolate pie, cut it into small pieces and freeze for snacks.
Chocolate Goji Berry Pie
Pecan Crust
Simple Ingredients
2 cups raw pecans
¼ cup maple sugar
1½ tbsp coconut oil
½ tsp sea salt
Simple Steps
Pulse pecans and maple sugar in food processor.
Add coconut oil and sea salt.
Pulse to combine well.
Press and shape mixture into the bottom of a 10-inch springform pan.
Thanks to my friend Nathalia, from Brazil for capturing the focus of making the crust for the chocolate pie.
Pour the chocolate chips in a single layer onto a flat baking sheet.
Place in the oven to melt for no more than 3-4 minutes or until melted. Be careful that you don’t burn them.
Melt Chocolate Chips in the oven.
Blend the Filling
Place tofu, vanilla, sea salt, and melted chocolate chips into a food processor.
Blend until smooth.
Pour mixture into pie crust and chill for at least 30 minutes.
Top with nuts, and fresh fruit or goji berries.
Chocolate Pie Plating Mise en Place
Chocolate Goji Berry Pie Plating Mise en PlaceSimplicity of the Chocolate Goji Berry Pie
In awe of the beautiful chocolate pie created at the Dessert Cooking Class at The Farm at South Mountain.
The beauty of the Chocolate Goji Berry Pie prepared during the Dessert Cooking Class at The Farm at South Mountain.
While making this pie for the Arizona edition of the January 2019 issue of Natural Awakenings magazine, I had the fun opportunity to create a “birthday pop-up celebration” for urban farmer, Billy Anthony, of the Soil & Seed Garden at The Farm at South Mountain.
My honor to celebrate Billy Anthony’s Birthday with the Pie Pop-up.Thanks so much to Billy and Bailey for the Soil & Seed CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).
What fun celebrating Billy’s Birthday…thanks so much for “playing”!
Billy Anthony’s Chocolate Goji Berry Pie is ready to enjoy.
The beauty of food…Chocolate Cream Pie with Persimmons & Berries
Enjoying the Chocolate Goji Pie creations.
Yummm…And, the perfect setting, at The Farm at South Mountain to enjoy…
Thanks Billy Anthony for growing the beautiful produce at the Soil & Seed Garden at The Farm. And, Happy Birthday.
Happy Birthday to you, Billy Anthony…wishing you another wonderful year. Thanks so much for so passionately growing all of the incredible beautiful, tasty food at the Soil & Seed Garden at The Farm at South Mountain, Phoenix.
Thanks to Natural Awakenings AZ magazine for featuring my Plant-Based Chocolate Pie on the cover and Plant-Based Dessert recipes in the January 2019 issue.
Natural Awakenings Arizona, January 2019Natural Awakenings Arizona, January 2019. Start the New Year Off Right
Purchase Melanie Albert’s award-winning cookbook,“A New View of Healthy Eating: Simple Intuitive Cooking with Real Whole Foods”
PUBLIC COOKING CLASSES IN PHOENIX, ARIZONA
Phoenix friends…hope you or your kids can join us at one of our hands-on intuitive cooking classes this season… Vision Board & Appetizers, Foods for Addiction Recovery, Spring Farm-to-Table, Raw Farm-to-Table, and Kids Food Art.
By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition, Intuitive Cooking Expert, and Award-Winning Cookbook Author
Excited to share with you four amazing, delicious, beautiful, and “healthy” plant-based desserts for you to enjoy creating with your family and friends: Super Berry Cashew Cream Pie, Chocolate Goji Berry Cream Pie, Aromatic Apple Berry, and Raw Carrot Cake. The desserts feature berries, chocolate, goji berries, and amazing aromatic culinary experiences with hand-grinding spices, including cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and cardamom.
We created these desserts at our hands-on Holiday cooking class at The Farm at South Mountain and I have to say they were all so created with so much mindfulness and heart. Plus, they were delicious.
The first dessert is the Super Berry Cashew Cream Pie. Links to the other plant-based dessert recipes:
Choose a recipe that you are excited about and then come back and make another one.
Berry Cashew Cream Pie
Create a stunning cream pie that’s simple to prepare and full of flavor. Enjoy the process of adding superfood berries, acai and maqui, to add a beautiful purple layer of color to the pie, and have fun plating with your favorite fresh berries.
Berry Cashew Cream Pie
Walnut Crust
Simple Ingredients
1 cup walnuts
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp coconut oil
¼ tsp vanilla
Pinch salt
Simple Steps
Process walnuts into a flour in a food processor.
Add cinnamon and salt and pulse to combine.
Add vanilla and coconut oil, and process until dough is crumbly, but sticks together.
Press crust into the bottom of an 8×8 parchment-lined pan.
Chill in refrigerator or freezer to set.
Filling
Simple Ingredients
1 cup raw cashews, pre-soaked in water 2-4 hours.
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp light agave
2 tbsp coconut oil
Pinch sea salt
2-3 tbsp cashew milk or water, as needed to blend
Simple Steps
Blend cashews, lemon juice, vanilla extract, agave, and sea salt in a high speed blender.
Add coconut oil, and blend.
Add cashew milk, as needed for smoothness.
Pour filling on top of crust in chilled pan. (Save ¼ cup of the filling to make superfood filling.)
Chill in refrigerator or freezer to set.
Superfood Filling
Simple Ingredients
¼ cup of cashew filling
½ tsp acai powder
½ tsp maqui powder
Simple Steps
Put cashew filling, acai powder, and maqui powder into a small bowl.
Stir with a spoon until thoroughly mixed.
Pour the filling onto the top of chilled pie in the pan.
Chill in refrigerator or freezer.
Berry Cashew Cream Pie: Maqui and Acai Filling
Plating
Simple Ingredients
½ cup fresh blackberries or blueberries
Simple Steps
Cut pie into squares or rectangles.
Plate with fresh blackberries or blueberries.
Plating Mise en Place…
Berry Cream Pie Mise en Place for Plating
The Superfood Berry Pie…
The Superfood Berry Cream Pie Beauty
A few photos from the Holiday Dessert Cooking Class at The Farm. Thanks to my photographer friend, Nathalia from Brazil for capturing the event.
Melanie Albert, Holiday Desserts Cooking Class at The Farm at South MountainBlackberries onto the Berry Cream Pie
A few more fun photos from the Holiday Dessert Cooking Class at The Farm
Thanks to Natural Awakenings AZ magazine for featuring my Plant-Based Chocolate Pie on the cover and Plant-Based Dessert recipes in the January 2019 issue.
Natural Awakenings Arizona, January 2019Natural Awakenings Arizona, January 2019. Start the New Year Off Right
Purchase Melanie Albert’s award-winning cookbook,“A New View of Healthy Eating: Simple Intuitive Cooking with Real Whole Foods”
PUBLIC COOKING CLASSES IN PHOENIX, ARIZONA
Phoenix friends…hope you or your kids can join us at one of our hands-on intuitive cooking classes this season… Vision Board & Appetizers, Foods for Addiction Recovery, Spring Farm-to-Table, Raw Farm-to-Table, and Kids Food Art.
By Melanie A. Albert, intuitive cooking expert, author, and speaker. Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition Group, LLC
It is such an honor to be part of the Spiritual Adrenaline Holiday Dessert Guide. I appreciate Tom Shanahan for the opportunity to share my simple, healthy desserts with you. This Chocolate Avocado Pudding was one of the first “good-for-us” desserts I learned to make with “healthy ingredients.” I invite you to experiment with this pudding and I have a feeling you might enjoy it long after the holidays.
Excerpt from A New View of Healthy Eating: Chocolate Avocado Pudding (page 166)
Incredible, rich, and creamy vegan chocolate pudding will delight everyone. Make it for dessert or an after-work or after-school snack. Once you’ve made this avocado pudding, experiment by adding some extras, such as bananas, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, homemade nut milk, and freshly ground spices, like cinnamon and nutmeg.
SIMPLE INGREDIENTS
4 ripe avocados
8 Medjool dates, pitted and sliced
2 tsp vanilla extract or 2 vanilla beans, scraped
½ cup raw cacao powder
2 cups water
SIMPLE STEPS
Place all ingredients in high-speed blender.
Blend on high for about 2 minutes.
Stop and scrape down sides of blender, if needed.
Blend for another 2 minutes or until completely pureed and smooth.
Refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
Enjoy topped with fresh fruit, nuts, and seeds.
A New View of Healthy Eating Book is available now. I’m happy to gift-wrap for you and your friends.
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By Melanie A. Albert, intuitive cooking expert, author, and speaker. Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition Group, LLC
This evening I celebrated the launch of my book, with my dear yoga friend, Jody Loren, at the wonderful Quiessence Restaurant at The Farm at South Mountain, which is just a mile from my home. Tonight I’m sharing with you our dessert: incredibly beautiful and tasty fruit sorbet, topped with dehydrated fruit. My favorite flavors were the sweet and refreshing apple and pineapple. Our meal was so tasty and beautiful at the magical Farm at South Mountain, so stay tuned as I’ll be sharing more of the beautiful food, should I say food art.
The excerpt from A New View of Healthy Eating are the simple steps to make your own sorbet.
Fruit Sorbet
For most of my life I ate refreshing sorbet only at restaurants. Now with this simple sorbet process, I enjoy making it at home with local, seasonal fruit. I especially love sorbet with freshly harvested Arizona oranges. Intuitively create sorbet with fruits that are local and in season and experiment with different fruit, spices, and herbs to create sorbet year-round.
Simple Steps to Create Fruit Sorbet
SIMPLE INGREDIENTS
4 cups fresh fruit
½ cup fresh fruit juice, as needed
Freshly ground spices or herbs
Pinch sea salt
5 tbsp agave nectar or coconut sugar, as needed
SIMPLE STEPS
Blend fresh fruit, fresh fruit juice, ground spices or herbs, and a pinch of sea salt in high-speed blender.
Taste and add sweetener if needed.
Pour into frozen sorbet maker and process for about 15-20 minutes until thick, soft, and creamy.
For firmer sorbet, freeze in an air-tight container for about 2 hours and remove from freezer 15 minutes before serving.
Enjoy.
I invite you to have fun experimenting with making your own fruit sorbet. Come over to our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/NewViewHealthyEating and share photos of your sorbet with us.
By Melanie Albert, Nutrition & Wellness Expert, Author, Speaker, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition, Instructor Holistic Nutrition Conscious Eating and Whole Food S.O.U.L. Food at Southwest Institute of Healing Arts.
Chia seeds are the rage today! But some of us remember when they were the green hair that grew on our Chia Pets when we were kids. Who knew that decades later we’d be eating them!
Chia seeds come from a flowering plant in the mint family that’s native to Mexico and Guatemala, and history suggests it was a very important food crop for the Aztecs.
Top 5 Benefits of Chia Seeds
• Good fats. Chia seeds, like hemp seeds and flax seeds are a great ALA omega-3 healthy-fat rich seed, which is important for brain health and reduction of inflammation in the body. • High in protein. Great source of protein for vegetarians and vegans • Stabilize blood sugar. Important for diabetics • Improve heart health. According to the Cleveland Clinic, chia seeds have been shown to improve blood pressure in diabetics, and may also increase healthy cholesterol, whil lowering total, bad LDL and triglyceride cholesterol • Good source of calcium. 18% or the recommended daily intake for calcium.
Ingredients
• 1/3 cup chia seeds
• 1 cup soy milk (or coconut water)
• 2 chopped bananas
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1-2 Medjool dates, if you desire more sweetness
• Berries, nuts and seeds for toppings
Simple Steps
• Mix chia seeds, vanilla and dates into the soy milk or coconut water
• Fold in the bananas
• Refrigerate for at least 4 hours (or overnight)
• Enjoy for breakfast, snack, or dessert with your favorite berries, nuts and seeds
