It’s pretty tough to enjoy all those holiday sweets at Christmas and New Year’s and then cut back down to zero after the holidays. I think it’s easier if you just switch to healthier sweets for awhile first, sort of a “step down gradually” method. Healthier sweets have more nutrients and fiber than the chocolates or junk food you may have been nibbling on, so they’re more satisfying than empty calories, and when you choose the right ones they’re just as delicious too. This cobbler fills the bill. You will not miss anything here, and you can have more of it per serving, so you won’t feel deprived at all.
The recipe is available in the excellent raw recipe book, Going Raw, which you may remember from a previous article. You can preview it on Amazon.com. Every recipe I’ve tried so far in this book has been outstanding.
This cobbler was exceptional, and I made it exactly like the recipe except for omitting the raisins and substituting packaged almond meal for the soaked and dehydrated cashews. I don’t buy raisins anymore because I will only buy the organic kind, which are difficult to find. Grapes are a heavily pesticide-sprayed crop, and making them into raisins only concentrates the toxicity. This recipe doesn’t really need the added sweetness anyway. In fact, next time I’ll cut the agave nectar way down because the recipe turned out a bit too sweet for me. If you are really watching your sugar intake, you might want to omit the maple cream (or have just a tiny amount), reduce the agave, and cut the crust/topping recipe in half. It will still be delicious.
Like any raw apple pie or cobbler, this one tastes better the second day. Sitting overnight makes the apples a little softer, more like they are when they’re cooked, and the flavors meld and develop overnight. You’ll probably have to make a double batch to ensure that you have some left by then, though. In my opinion, it’s terrific right after it’s made, and it will obviously have more vitamins and antioxidants when it’s fresh too. Still, it’s good to know that if you’re making this for a crowd you can make it a day ahead and it will still be good.
I found all of the ingredients for this dish at Kroger’s, but I know that Nutra Foods also has raw cashews if you want to make the author’s version, and they also carry the almond meal I used and the agave nectar. Organic apples have been excellent this year. I get mine at Kroger's, where I look for the Viva Tierra brand, but when they are out of that brand, the other brands have been good this year also.
Some recipes are worth the extra time it takes to make them, and this is one of those, although actually it didn’t take as long as I expected. Slicing the apples took the longest, and the other components were whipped up quickly in the Vitamix. The results were so terrific that I’ll look forward to making this again the next time I have a craving for a real dessert but don’t want empty calories.
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