I had been wanting to try something like this for a while - as I said, I loooove Medjool dates! But I got the final kick in the bum the other day when a lovely woman I met at a demo asked if I had a recipe for date spread in the Thermomix. This is a huge part of why I love my job as a consultant... I meet so many amazing, wonderful people and we all bounce ideas off each other and come away with inspiration and ideas!
As I said before, this can be made like a dip or a spread. Just add a bit more of the soaking water to have it more dippy than spready. The spread is ideal on a piece of toast, whilst the dip is great to add a bit of flair to some cut up fruit. Somewhere in between dip and spread, this would make an awesome icing for a cake!!! On the end of a wedge of apple, it's very 'caramel apple'. With bananas, it's very 'banoffee pie'. We happily dug (or dipped) into this for dessert tonight, but I would happily serve small portions next to lots of fresh fruit as a snack. If you have fussy kids, what a great way to encourage them to eat more fruit! Think of it like the sweet version of dip and veggie sticks. Yuuuummy!
We had 'caramel apples' and 'banoffees' tonight!
Raw 'Caramel' Dip/Date SpreadIngredients:
400g medjool dates, seeds removed
water, to cover
90g raw (cold-pressed) tahini or nut butter
juice of 1/2 a lime
2 vanilla beans
1/2 tsp sea salt (coarse or fine)
Method:
1) Weigh medjool dates (with the seeds removed) into a bowl, add water to cover, and soak for 3-4 hours.
2) Drain the medjool dates, reserving the soaking liquid.
3) Put dates, tahini (or nut butter) and sea salt into TM bowl. Scrape the seeds out of 2 vanilla beans and add seeds to TM bowl. Squeeze the juice of half a lime into TM bowl. Puree on speed 8, adding a little of the soaking liquid every 5 secs or so through the hole in the lid until you are happy with the consistency (about 30-45seconds). Check the consistency between each addition of soaking water, as there is a very fine line between spread and dip.
4) Put it in a jar, store in the fridge, and put a padlock on it! This is gooooood stuff.
Let me know if you have any recipe requests! As you can see, I am more than happy to be the guinea pig. :)
Big drool - this looks divine!!
ReplyDeleteAllison
http://utterlyorganised.blogspot.com.au/
Thanks Allison! I hope you give it a go! :)
DeleteI fed this dip to a big group of local Thermomix consultants recently, who all loved it. I desperately want to make more of it, but it would use up the last of my date supply! Hmmmm... Tempting! :)