Earlier this week I was lucky enough to sample some delicious Fruit and Nut Cookies from Pure and Simple Bakes. First off let me tell you they are delicious on their own!! I decided however that I needed a little munchie buster that wasn’t going to affect my clean eating plan so I set about creating one of my favourite desserts in miniature …
Banoffee Pie!
You will need:
12 Fresh Medjool dates
8 Fruit and Nut cookies, see recipe below
Coconut Milk
1 medium Banana, sliced
For the ‘Caramel’, remove the stones from your dates and then pop them into your food processor and add a splash of coconut milk.
Blitz until the mixture resembles caramel. Keep adding coconut milk until you are there. The mixture will be a smooth and beautiful caramel colour.
Place the cookies onto a plate, slice the banana and lay the slices onto the top.
Add a dollop of caramel to each cookie and pop another slice of banana on the top, finish with a sprinkle of raw cacao or cinnamon if you like.
Let me know what you think…
125g Almonds
75g Brazil nuts
40g Dried coconut flakes
85g Dried Prunes (or dates)
45g Dried apricots
20g Pumpkin seeds
15g Sunflower seeds
zest of 1/2 Lemon
1 tbsp freshly pressed Apple juice (or prune juice)
Preheat the oven to 150 C and line a baking tray with baking parchment.
Place everything in a food processor and pulse until the nuts and fruit are finely chopped and the mixture starts to come together. Add a little more juice if you find it’s too dry. You can either make small balls of the mixture and then flatten them on to a baking tray, or if you want pretty little shapes like my flower-shaped biccies then line a baking tray with baking parchment and tip the mixture into it. Flatten the mixture down. I found the easiest way was to use a piece of baking parchment and then apply pressure with a palette knife or my hands. You want it to be about 5mm thick and well compressed. Use a biscuit cutter to cut out shapes and carefully transfer to another lined baking tray.
Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, or until firm, then cool on a wire rack. They will be a little pliable when removed, but as they cool they will harden.