This week, I am featuring a few of my favorite raw food bloggers on my blog. It is my honor to have them guest post and share a bit of their delicious food with us all! The first blogger I am featuring is Jonny Freesh. Ever since I first saw his recipes I have been inspired by them. They are beautiful, delicious looking (and tasting, I have tried a few), and I am jealous of all of the yummy tropical fruit he has access to (in a good way). He is also a rapper, and his lyrics are about raw food! How awesome is that?! You all should visit his blog when you are done here and check out the deliciousness there. Now I will turn it over to him!
When Amy asked me to do a guest post on her blog I got really really super excited. I've been admiring her stunningly gorgeous Raw Desserts for well over a year and it's a huge honor to contribute to her site. She was the one who inspired me to take my swirling game to the next level. As my hilarious New Yorker friend would say, “Her Swirl Game is Ferocious!”
We've been communicating online for a while now, and it quickly became apparent that Amy has a penchant for tropical fruits. When she revealed that she liked Durian I swear I shed a tear of joy 😉
So I wanted to bring something special for this awesome opportunity. I may have gone a bit overboard lol, as there are 6 different Tropical Fruits in this delicacy, including Jackfruit and Snakefruit, two tropical fruits that I rarely see in recipes.
I also wanted to create something really unique and new. So that's where the Jamu comes in. Jamu is a traditional Indonesian herbal medicine that commonly comes in the form of a Turmeric juice here in Bali. So I put some Turmeric Powder in the yellow layer, which also had the benefit of making the color much more vibrant.
For those of you that are thinking, ewwww, turmeric in Dessert!?!? I encourage you to give it a try. I find that it mixes surprisingly well with chocolate, and it gives a delicious zesty tang to this cake.
And to make this cake extra super seriously special, I used Mangosteen. Here in Indonesia they call Durian the King of Fruits, and Mangosteen is his Queen. And deservedly. She is a divine concoction of sweetness and tartness, adorned in an elegant, regal, and yet simple costume.
Which, as you can probably imagine from looking at it, isn't exactly easy and quick to unpack. Which is why I rarely use it in recipes. It takes quite some time to separate those cute little white pods from the fairly large seeds that dwell inside. And each whole Mangosteen is about the size of a child's fist, so it takes about 3 kilos of fruit to get the 1 cup of de-seeded fruit required to make a significant amount of Mangosteen tasting substance.
But if any blog is worthy of the extra time and care required to create a Mangosteen cake, Fragrant Vanilla Cake is it. One day I hope Amy is afforded the opportunity to play around with a few kilos of the Queen of Fruits. Alas, man can but dream. Without further ado, here is the recipe for The Raw Tropical Bonanza Jamu Freesh Cake.
P.S. The word Freesh means to make Raw Food. I was never a fan of the word Uncooking and cooking raw food just doesn't sound right.
The Raw Tropical Bonanza Jamu Freesh Cake
Makes one 9 inch cake
Tools:
Blender, Food Processor, 9” Spring Form Pan
Ingredients:
Crust:
2 cups Walnuts (soaked & dehydrated)
1 cup Desiccated Coconut
¼ cup Coconut Oil
1 cup Dried Figs
½ tsp Salt
White Layer:
1 cup Young Coconut Meat
1 cup Coconut Butter
¼ cup Raw Coconut Palm Nectar
¼ cup Coconut Water
½ tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tbsp Coconut Water (for swirl)
Yellow Layer:
1 cup Chopped Jackfruit
½ cup Chopped Snakefruit
½ cup Passionfruit Goo
1 cup Raw Cashews (soaked)
2 tsp Turmeric Powder
¼ cup Raw Coconut Butter
½ cup Coconut Oil
2 Vanilla Beans
Purple Layer:
¼ cup Dates soaked in ½ cup Coconut Oil for 10-20 Minutes (Use Both)
1 cup Raw Cashews (soaked)
¼ cup Fresh Purple Mulberries
1 cup Mangosteen
2 Vanilla Beans
A Pinch of Salt
Instructions:
1. Blitz all crust ingredients until well mixed and it easily sticks between your fingers.
2. Wipe down Spring Form Pan with coconut oil and press crust firmly down into the bottom of it.
3. Blend all White Layer ingredients until smooth and creamy.
4. Set aside 3 tbsp for swirl and mix with 1 tbsp of Coconut Water.
5. Put 1/3 cup into an icing syringe or piping bag and put in fridge.
6. Pour remainder into pan and put in freezer.
7. Blend all Yellow Layer ingredients until smooth and creamy.
8. Set aside 3 tbsp for swirl.
9. Put 1/3 cup in piping bag or icing syringe and put in fridge.
10.Pour on top of white layer and put back in freezer.
11.Blend all purple layer ingredients until smooth and creamy.
12.Pour on top of yellow layer.
13.Put small dollops of the 3 tbsps of yellow and white layer you set aside earlier around the top of the purple layer and swirl with a skewer or thin chopstick.
14.Pipe icing around side of cake.
15.Put in freezer to set for 3-4 hours.
16.Slice, serve, and bask in the glow of the tropical fruits of Bali.
