Raw Vegan Blackberry Ice Cream On Gluten Free Chocolate Cake

Served with sliced bananas for a raw banana split or with a slice of this simple chocolate cake, raw blackberry ice cream is a perfect  summer dessert!

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More Raw Ice Cream!
I know I just posted Mango Macadamia Nut ice cream a few weeks ago but hey, it's summer! I can eat ice cream every day, especially when it's full of fresh fruit and raw, heart heathy nuts! 
My last post, Blackberry Lemon Ginger muffins featured the neighbors blackberries that are growing through my back fence. Well, there are plenty of blackberries left so this time I'll be using them to make raw ice cream.


Strain the Blackberries First
If you've ever thrown blackberries in your smoothie, even if you have a Vitamix blender, you'll notice the distasteful chopped up seeds in your mouth. There's no way around it - to get a nice smooth ice cream (or even smoothie), you need to strain the blackberries first. This gives you a beautiful and intense flavor. It takes a bit of patience, but it's worth it. So please, don't skip this step!

First blend the blackberries with a little water and strain.
Straining blackberries takes patience but don't skip this step!

Vegan and Gluten Free Chocolate Cake
I'm still trying to perfect my gluten free baking so today I'm sharing a very simple recipe for chocolate cake I developed using Bob's Red Mill gluten free all purpose flour. The recipe is relatively low in sugar and uses apple sauce to cut down the amount of oil to only 1/4 cup. Each slice is less than 150 calories!

Each slice is only 134 calories!

Blackberry Ice Cream
Raw Vegan, Gluten Free
[makes 8 servings]
2 cups fresh blackberries, cleaned
1 cup water
2 ounces raw cashews, (1/2 cup), soaked 6 hours and rinsed
3 Medjool dates, soaked 6 hours in 1 cup water (SAVE soak water)
1 large ripe banana, peeled 
1 teaspoon vanilla extract *
* vanilla extract is usually gluten free but if you are on a gluten restricted diet, check label.


Place blackberries and 1 cup water in a Vitamix or other high speed blender and blend until smooth.
Strain blackberries through a strainer pushing pulp through with the back of a spoon. Rinse blender.
Place cashews in the blender with dates and their soak water and process until smooth and milky.
Add blackberry pulp, banana and vanilla extract and process until very smooth. (I added a packet of stevia to mine to give it a touch more sweetness but this isn't necessary).
You can refrigerate this mixture until needed later in the day or the next day.
Place mixture in a 1 1/2 or 2 quart ice cream maker and process according to instructions.
Serve immediately. Place unused ice cream in individual scoops onto a cookie sheet or plate and freeze. Once frozen, place scoops in a plastic container and put back in freezer until needed. You may have to defrost slightly to get them off the cookie sheet or plate. (This process makes serving the leftover ice cream easier as low fat ice cream freezes very hard and is difficult to serve). Leftover ice cream scoops make a lovely addition to your morning smoothie!


Per serving: 94.1 calories, 3.3 g fat, 0.5 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 1.9 g protein, 16.6 g carbohydrates and 1.5 g dietary fiber.


Simple Chocolate Cake
Vegan, Gluten Free
[makes 12 servings]
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
3 tablespoons water
1 1/2 cups gluten free all purpose flour *
3/4 teaspoons xanthan gum *
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon aluminum free baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup organic cane sugar or Sucanat
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Powdered sugar for dusting (optional)


* If you do not want to make the cake gluten free, replace gluten free flour with white whole wheat flour and eliminate the xanthan gum.


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Cut wax paper to fit the bottom of an 8 inch cake pan. Place in the bottom and grease the sides of the pan with Earth Balance vegan buttery spread or olive oil. Set aside.
Make a flax egg by combining ground flaxseeds and water in a small bowl or cup. Beat with a fork until the mixture becomes gooey. Set aside.
Combine flour, xanthan gum, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt in large bowl and mix well.
In a medium bowl, mix the soy milk with the sugar, vanilla extract, apple sauce, olive oil and flax egg. Mix with a hand beater or a fork until thoroughly combined.
Add mixture to the dry ingredients and beat again until well blended.
Pour into prepared pan and bake for 23 to 25 minutes or until you can insert a toothpick in the middle and it comes out clean.
Remove from oven and cool in the pan for 5 to 10 minutes.
Turn the cake onto the rack, gently removing the wax paper from the bottom. Turn the cake back over so it is cooling face side up. Set aside until cool or serve slightly warm.
Dust with powdered sugar if desired.


Per serving: 133.8 calories, 5.8 g fat, 0.7 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 2.3 g protein, 21.6 g carbohydrates and 2.7 g dietary fiber.

Blackberry Lemon Ginger Muffins - Vegan And Gluten Free

Blackberries blend beautifully with lemon and crystallized ginger.

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Blackberries Everywhere!
If you live anywhere near blackberries, you know that they grow like weeds and around this time of year, they are everywhere! We have some growing all along a trail near our house which we occasionally nibble on but this year Doug discovered blackberries growing through our back fence. How exciting to have these healthful little berries right there for the picking!

Blackberries growing through our backyard fence!

One cup of these little jewels are only 62 calories.

They provide half the RDA of vitamin C and manganese and have 8 grams of fiber!

Blackberries are rich in polyphenols and anthocyanins and are very high on the ORAC scale which measures antioxidant properties.

Gluten Free Baking
After learning a lot about the effects of gluten on the body from Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo's lecture at the Raw Health Expo, I started to develop more gluten free recipes. Since we love making fresh muffins and other baked goods, I quickly had to find a substitute for wheat flour. It's hard enough to make vegan baked goods without butter or eggs, so I thought this was going to be an even greater challenge. But luckily, I found Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Flour . It works much better when you add Xanthan gum to the recipe. If you don't want to make the muffins gluten free, you can substitute your normal flour in this recipe (I suggest white whole wheat) and eliminate the xanthan gum.

For best results, add xanthan gum to gluten free flour.
For cookies, add 1/4 tsp xanthan gum per cup of GF flour.
For cakes, add 1/2 tsp per cup of GF flour.
For muffins/quick breads, add 3/4 tsp per cup of GF flour.
For breads, add 1 to 1 1/2 tsp per cup of GF flour.
For pizza crust, use 2 tsp per cup of GF flour.

Blackberries, Lemon and Ginger 
I love crystallized ginger. I pop a few pieces in my mouth, from time to time, like they were candy. So I thought they'd match well with the tartness of blackberries. In this recipe, I also add a little lemon zest to bring out the flavors even more.

Penseys is my favorite crystallized ginger.
It's minced into tiny pieces, each delicately coated in sugar.

Blackberry Lemon Ginger Muffins
[Vegan, Gluten Free]
makes 12 muffins
Earth balance for greasing muffin pan
2 cups Bob's Red Mill gluten free all purpose flour *
1 1/2 teaspoons xanthan gum *
2 tablespoons ground flaxseeds
1 tablespoon aluminum free baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/3 cup organic cane sugar or Sucanat
zest from one lemon
2/3 cup apple sauce
3/4 cup gluten free soy milk
1 teaspoon gluten free vanilla extract
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup fresh blackberries
1/4 cup crystallized ginger, minced
* For non-gluten free muffins, substitute either white whole wheat or regular multi-purpose flour for the gluten free flour and eliminate the xanthan gum.


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Generously grease a muffin tin with a vegan buttery spread like Earth Balance and set aside.
In a medium bowl, mix flour, xanthan gum, flaxseeds, baking powder, salt and sugar and stir until combined.
In another bowl, mix lemon zest, apple sauce, soy milk, vanilla extract and olive oil. Blend with a fork, whisk or hand beater until combined.
Add to the flour mixture and stir until well blended.
Gently fold in the blackberries and crystallized ginger until they are uniformly distributed.
Scoop batter into muffin tins with a spoon and bake for 24 minutes at 350 degrees or until a toothpick comes out clean when placing it in the middle of the muffins.
Remove from oven and let cool in pan for 5 minutes.
Take a butter knife and gently go around the edge of each muffin. Remove muffins from pan.
Serve warm or place on rack until cool before storing them.


Per muffin: 163.1 calories, 5.8 g fat, 0.7 g saturated fat, 2.8 g protein, 27.9 g carbohydrates and 3.5 g dietary fiber.

Gently fold blackberries and crystallized ginger into the batter.

Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Serve warm!

"Lucky" French Toast With Mango, Blackberries And Whole Grain Seeded Baguette - A Healthy Vegetarian Breakfast

Use a whole grain, seeded baguette. I use Judy's Breadsticks.

Why Is This "Lucky" French Toast?

I spent decades traveling throughout Asia on business when working in high tech. And after flying well over a million miles doing so, I picked up many Asian customs, dietary habits and superstitions. I eat with chopsticks as easily as with a fork and when I eat out, it's almost always Japanese, Vietnamese or Chinese cuisine.

I'm Italian which naturally makes me pretty superstitious to begin with so it was pretty easy to latch on the Chinese belief that 8 is a very lucky number. I've since become pretty obsessed with the number 8 but the Chinese are even more so. If you recall, the Beijing Olympics started on 8/8/08 at 8 minutes and 8 seconds after 8PM. The number 8 is associated with wealth and fortune which are very important in the Chinese culture. On one of my first visits to Hong Kong, I was shocked to hear that someone had paid $50,000 for a license plate with all 8's. I'm sure it would cost a lot more for that today.

So today's recipe is "lucky" because it has lots of "8's"; 8 slices of bread, 8 drops of stevia, 1/8 teaspoons of all seasonings and 8 large blackberries. And, you can say, this is what I "8" for breakfast!

Don't Eat Eggs from Tortured Chickens

Many of my readers are vegans who avoid all animal products and feel pretty strongly about not eating eggs. As a nutritionist, I feel that an occasional egg can be part of a heathy diet. But I do feel strongly that most of the egg industry abuses and tortures chickens. If you are lucky enough to live in the country, as we do, you can easily find eggs from chickens who live outdoors and a natural diet. In fact, you may have chickens yourself or neighbors who will sell you their eggs. But for those of you who live in the city, it's not so easy. Many of the eggs you buy are from chickens who are kept in large, dark buildings in very crowded and filthy conditions. Some of their beaks are cut so they don't peck each other to death. I can't imagine that an egg coming from an environment like that, from a chicken who is under that much stress, can be as healthful as one from a free range chicken. So if you eat an occasional egg, know your source.

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Lucky French Toast with Mango and Blackberries

[serves 2]

1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

2 large organic eggs from happy chickens

1/4 cup unsweetened organic soy milk (or other milk)

1/8 teaspoon sea salt

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon vanilla

8 drops liquid stevia

8 slices whole grain, seeded baguette cut 3/4" thick

8 large blackberries

1/2 mango, diced

Coat a non stick 9" frying pan or griddle with olive oil.

In a small bowl, lightly beat eggs. Add soy milk, salt, cinnamon, vanilla and stevia and beat well. Heat the pan on medium heat. Dip slices of baguette into egg mixture making sure they soak it up, and place in heated pan. Drizzle extra egg mixture, if any, slowly over the baguette slices. Cook several minutes on each side until lightly brown making sure the egg is cooked thoroughly. Remove from pan, top with mango and blackberries and serve immediately.

Per serving: 310.3 calories, 12.3 g fat, 3.1 g saturated fat, 211 mg cholesterol, 12.6 g protein, 41 g carbohydrates and 6.1 g of fiber.

Raw Vegan Blackberry, Strawberry And Mango Breakfast Salad - A Healthy Way To Start Your Day

Freeze strawberry tops, with greens, for later use in smoothies.

It's The Weekend!

It's a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning here in Northern California. After enjoying a cup of Yerba Mate tea, I decided to start the weekend with a colorful and healthful fruit salad. Last night there was an amazing sale on blackberries which add color and richness to this salad not to mention their high fiber and antioxidant content.

It's All In The Colors

I've mentioned this many times - the color of your meal is an indication of its nutritional benefits. I'm not talking food coloring - that would make fruit loops appear healthful. I'm talking colors from nature. This fruit salad is not only rich in vitamin C and other key vitamins and minerals, but its colors are an indication of the many beneficial plant chemical or "phytochemicals" it provides. These phytochemicals are known to protect us against cardiovascular disease, some cancers and premature aging. There are hundreds of these protective plant chemicals found in nature and by eating 5 to 7 or more servings of colorful fruits and vegetables a day, we are able to get a nice selection of these in our diet.

Serve this fruit salad by itself or with Raw Granola or Agave Sweetened Vegan Granola.

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Blackberry, Strawberry and Mango Salad

[serves 2 as a meal or 4 as a side dish]

2 tablespoons fresh orange juice

4 drops stevia, (optional)

1 cup fresh strawberries, cleaned and sliced

1 cup fresh blackberries, cleaned

1 cup fresh mango, diced

1/4 cup raw English walnuts, chopped

1 tablespoon dried, unsweetened coconut

In a medium bowl, mix orange juice and stevia. Add sliced strawberries and mix well. Add blackberries and mango and toss gently. Top with English walnuts and dried coconut and serve.

Per serving (2 servings total): 232 calories, 11.2 g fat, 2.4 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 4.5 g protein, 32.3 g carbohydrates and 8.3 g of fiber.

Per serving (4 servings total): 116 calories, 5.6 g fat, 1.2 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 2.3 g protein, 16.1 g carbohydrates and 4.2 g of fiber.

Vegan Gravenstein Apple and Blackberry Crisp

Gravenstein apple tree.

Gravenstein apples at Andy's Market in Sebastopol, Ca.

Blackberries on the West County trail, Sonoma county.

The Celebrated Gravenstein Apple

When I moved to Sebastopol in 2008 I was quickly introduced to the Gravenstein apple and the many traditions surrounding it. In the early 1900's, apple farming and the processing of apple products were becoming a major industry in Sonoma county. Sebastopol continues to celebrate the importance of this wonderful fruit. In April, the town has an Apple Blossom Festival and in mid August, next weekend in fact, there is a two day Gravenstein Apple Fair. Unfortunately, this delicate and versatile apple is becoming extinct. In 1945 there were 14,000 acres of Gravensteins growing in Sonoma county. Now there are less than 1,000. I developed this recipe to celebrate the Gravenstein apple while we are still lucky enough to have them available. Since they don't travel well and are very perishable, there's a good chance that many of you will not be able to get Gravensteins so feel free to substitute any baking apple in this recipe. For those of you who can get this wonderful fruit (in California, Nova Scotia and Germany), go out and support your Gravenstein apple farmers by purchasing lots of apples and enjoying this mouth-watering crisp.

Blackberries are in Season

Besides seeing Gravenstein apple trees everywhere in Sebastopol, you will also find an abundance of blackberry bushes. There's a trail near our home known as West County trail which goes for miles and is lined with this wonderful and healthy berry. Locals can also find them in small berry farms, like Sebastopol Berry Farm, who have been growing and selling organic berries since 1986. I thought it would be fitting, since both of these local fruits ripen about the same time, to make a healthy dessert using them both. This dish is low in calories, saturated fat and cholesterol and is high in fiber and omega 3 fatty acid.

***

Vegan Gravenstein Apple and Blackberry Crisp [serves 6]

For the crisp

3/4 cup rolled oats

2 tablespoons Sucanat or organic brown sugar

2 small packets stevia extract (optional for added sweetness)

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons of vegan earth balance margarine or vegetable oil

For the fruit

4 cups peeled and sliced Gravenstein or baking apples

1 cup fresh blackberries

2 teaspoons Fruit Fresh produce protector (or 1 tablespoon lemon juice)

1 tablespoon Sucanat or organic cane sugar

1/4 cup chopped raw walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, combine the oats, Sucanat, stevia, flour, cinnamon and margarine. If you want added sweetness and do not want to use stevia (a zero calorie, herbal sweetener), you may add another tablespoon of sugar or your favorite low calorie sweetener). Mix with your fingers or with a fork until the mixture is course and looks like a crumble. Set aside. In another bowl, mix apples and blackberries and sprinkle with Fruit Fresh and sugar. Stir in walnuts and place fruit mixture in an ungreased 8" x 8" pan. Cover evenly with the crisp mixture and bake for 45 minutes. Crisp should be bubbly and slightly browned. Remove from oven, let sit for 10 minutes and serve.

Per serving: 190 calories, 7.7 g fat, 1.6 g saturated fat, 0 g cholesterol, 3.1 g protein, 29.4 g carbohydrates, 4.0 g fiber and 0.6 g omega 3 fatty acid.