A clean treat to help fill you with the spirit of Christmas, and a satisfied belly too.Leave one out for Santa!
INGREDIENTS
4 cups flaked coconut
1/4 cup maple syrup
3 Tbsp coconut oil
1/2 cup mixed dried fruit
1/2 cup macadamia nuts
1/4 cup dried cranberries
DIRECTIONS
Put 2 cups of the flaked coconut, coconut oil and maple syrup into a food processor and blitz on a moderately high speed until very well combined. The mixture should still have some texture to it though, so don't over-process.
Add the last 2 cups of flaked coconut and process on medium speed until combined.
Add the remaining ingredients and process on medium speed until the dried fruit and macadamia nuts are distributed evenly through the mixture. If you'd prefer the macadamias to be less chunky, roughly chop before adding them in.
Press the mixture firmly into a 20x20 square silicone cake container (or cake tin lined with baking paper) and freeze for at least 20 minutes. Once hard, cut into squares and serve.
This recipe is featured in the Sweets & Treats eBook, along with 50 others nutritiously raw snacks.
A Word from Tamara Lee
I always liked the idea of White Christmas. Growing up in Perth, Australia means that Christmas Day is spent in 40 degree heat (that's celsius, NOT Fahrenheit!). The closest we've ever seen to snow at Christmas time is the fluffy white clouds that dot the baby blue skies... Not remotely close, in other words.
To be honest though, I was never a fan of traditional White Christmas. All that copha, white chocolate, and glace cherries made feel kinda sick.
But's a traditional treat in any Christmas spread so I wanted to come up with a version that firstly, I actually liked, and secondly, wasn't going to give me an immediate heart attack.
My raw version certainly isn't as sweet as the sugar version, but it's certainly filling. All that yummy flaked coconut, made even more delish when the organic variety is used. It tastes like you are scooping it straight from a mature coconut and it's bliss!
Dried coconut is also a good source of dietary fibre and healthy fat. Nutritionists have often frowned on coconut products due to their high content of saturated fat, but more recent studies are now suggesting that consuming coconuts may help with lowering LDL cholesterol (the bad one) and increasing HDL cholesterol (the good one). LDL cholesterol is known as bad cholesterol because it can build up on the walls of your arteries and increase your chances of getting heart disease, the biggest killer in western society.
In fact according to the Australian Department of Health, Coronary Heart Disease kills 1 in 3 Aussies (1) and affects 1 in 2 at around age 60 (2). HDL takes the "bad" LDL cholesterol out of the blood and keeps it from building up in your arteries.
An animal study, published in the Indian Journal of Experimental Biology in 2012, found that coconut oil helped to lower the levels of harmful blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels in rats (3).
An additional animal study, published in Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine in 2012, notes that coconut oil may also help maintain healthy bone structure and fight osteoporosis (4).
Dried coconut meat does contain some good healthy fats and is very filling, so you're less likely to overeat. Just don't go too crazy on it, saturated fat is to be eaten sparingly
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