Salted chocolate fudge brownies with raw chocolate icing

The last week my kitchen has turned into a raw vegan dessert experimental mess. I'm eating ice cream cakes for breakfast which is awesome and they are not even the slightest bit bad for you! It's way too much fun playing around with recipes, especially because unlike normal baking, nothing is going in the oven, so no more hot kitchen, burns on my hands or black cakes in the oven, just a bit of music, dancing and mess.

My friends have been teasing me about the new veganism, especially because living in a ski resort the local diet is a whole load of melted cheese, bread and meat. I will have to come to terms with the fact that I am going to be blacklisted from all dinner invites in the future. However, I have been feeding them my experiments and trying to make some new recruitments. So far I have almost made one and had lots of requests for this delicious very naughty looking chocolate brownie recipe from This Rawsome vegan life so here it is! Good luck trying to not eat the mixture it's so yummy, especially the icing which managed to get itself onto my nose and I spent hours thinking I had grown a new freckle.

makes about 12

3/4 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup walnuts
1 cup dates
1 tsp vanilla extract or cinnamon
2 big tbsp cacao powder
pinch salt
small inch piece of banana or 2 tbsp melted coconut oil

Icing
1 tbsp of maple syrup, almond butter, cacao powder

Whizz up the oats and nuts in a food processor until they are almost a powder, then add the rest of the ingredients and mix until its all combined and sticks together. If it doesn't add a bit more banana or coconut oil. Press down into a tin and put in the fridge.

For the icing just mix the nut butter, powder and syrup together in a bowl until its nice and runny and easy to spread on top. If it's too thick add more maple syrup or a splash or nut milk. Store them in the fridge and they should keep for about 5 days if you manage not to eat them.

You can play around with sprinkles I used raw cacoa nibs and salt because I love salted chocolate, but you could use gogi berries, coconut flakes even orange zest if you are a fan of chocolate orange!

Bon Apetit!

Photo credit to my lovely neighbour Melody Sky

River cafe polenta, almond and lemon cake

This week has been a bit up and down with the weather, lots of rain and then an absolute scorcher yesterday in the 30˚s. Yesterday was an especially good day because not only did I get a little bit less pasty but I also stood up on my surfboard about 10 times!! I did almost die about twice getting absolutely smashed by waves and ended up with my hair looking a bit like a loo brush but very happy!! Since the weather has been crappy I made a huge cake, and I think this could be my newest most favourite cake I have ever made. I have been trawling through my River cafe books and there is so much amazing stuff so since I have all kinds of great ingredients on my door step I am going to go nuts and try loads this month. Serves 12 450g unsalted butter, softened 450g caster sugar 450g ground almonds 2 teaspoons good vanilla essence 6 free range eggs zest of 4 lemons juice of 1 lemon 225g polenta flour or fine semolina 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon of salt Preheat the oven to ...

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