Avocado Pie: Raw, Low-Sugar, Vegan

It's Monday, so it should be a "Fifty First Weeks" post again. That little theme fell by the wayside during April, as so many of my series seem to. What is this a "first week" of? On the down side, it feels like first week of "crash." But it could also be first week of preparing bucket list for life after semester. Here we go a-grading...


As promised yesterday, here is the Avocado Pie recipe, rawified and created without reliance on a high-powered blender, and with an attempt to give options that don't depend too much on hard-to-find ingredients. I also promised some thoughts soon about increasing calories: in this post, there will be many examples of how to reduce calories while keeping nutrient levels high. I'll start with the original recipe, then explain what I did, step-by-step, and finally give a summary of the whole thing (below the picture of Leslie).

Here's Lynn's original recipe for Avocado Pie:

Crust:
1 1/2 cups finely chopped pecans
1/2 cup shredded dried coconut (sweetened or not)
1/4 cup melted butter
Mix with fingers and press into (9in) pie pan. Bake at 375 until edges are slightly brown. Cool.


Filling:
2 large ripe avocados
2 cans sweetened condensed milk
Juice of 2 lemons
Mix in Cuisinart until smooth. Pour into (cooled) crust. Freeze.


Topping:
Whip 1 cup whipping cream and flavor with vanilla. Spread on top of filling and sprinkle with grated pecans. Freeze until firm.

What I needed to do to adapt this

Since this pie has an unbaked filling and a nut-based crust, it was quite straightforward to "rawify." Most raw pie crusts are nut-based anyway. For this particular occasion, I chose to bake the crust lightly, to preserve that browned look. I used the same proportions of pecans and shredded coconut, but used palm shortening instead of butter. Coconut oil or coconut butter would have worked fine too. 

To make the crust completely raw: Simply don't put it in the oven and leave raw! Or, if you want that toasted flavor, put it in a dehydrator on 115 for several hours; in your oven at its lowest temperature if you don't have a dehydrator. One more tip: if you want that toasted flavor without toasting it, add a little good quality salt to the crust mix.

Most raw pie fillings are based on a combination of soaked cashews, almond milk, coconut oil, sweetener (often agave nectar (which I will never use)), lecithin, and fruits or other flavorings. I will give directions for a cashew-based adaptation of this pie as well, but hey, avocados are plenty calorie dense all by themselves! I wanted to make a filling that was less calorie dense than pureed avocado, not more so! Therefore, I used irish moss and unsweetened almond milk to make a raw, vegan version of sweetened condensed milk. I used low-and no-glycemic sweeteners, since an avocado-based pie would be ideal for those avoiding sugar. 

Avocados are wonderfully nutrient dense, but if they're combined with a whole bunch of nuts, coconut oil and sugars, even if said nuts, coconut oil and sugars are nutrient dense in their own right, I feel you end up with too many calories per bite and are more likely to feel uncomfortable after enjoying. So I think it's a blessing that I can make a delicious pie filling based on avocado without having to add a whole lot of extra fat and sugar calories to make it delicious.

I'm so impressed: my immersion blender was capable of making irish moss gel too! I kind of suspected that was a Vita-mix task. I did chop the soaked irish moss up before blending, to help it out.

Sub-recipe: raw vegan sweetened condensed milk  (low-fat, low sugar, with substitution options)

1 cup unsweetened almond milk (if you use homemade, it'll likely be creamier and higher-fat)(here are some homemade nut milk recipes)

1/3 cup prepared irish moss gel (see below)

1/4 cup erythritol

1/4 cup coconut sugar (gives it that yellowish sweetened condensed milk color)

1 tablespoon lecithin

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1/2 teapoon white stevia powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Blend all together until smooth

To make the irish moss gel, soak a handful of irish moss seaweed in several changes of water until the seaweed expands in size and the water thickens up a little.

Roughly chop the moss, and blend it with as little of the soak water as possible, adding a quarter teaspoon of vanilla powder and a third cup of erythritol.

Here's how it looks:

Note: if you don't need it sugar free, use agave nectar, coconut nectar, maple syrup, raw honey, evaporated cane juice, or whatever sweetener you prefer instead of the erythritol. On the other hand, if you want the "sweetened condensed milk" completely sugar free, omit the coconut sugar and use more erythritol or stevia, or yacon syrup, to taste.

Here's the "sweetened condensed milk"--a nice, thick texture as you'd need for a pie filling, with no extra fat from cashews or coconut oil!

If you want a fattier version, instead of the irish moss gel, blend the almond milk with a third cup soaked cashews (or a quarter cup cashew butter) and two tablespoons coconut oil.

If you want a lower fat version but don't have irish moss, you could either double the amount of xanthan gum, or use two tablespoons ground psyllium husks (probably not the best option), or you could gently heat the almond milk and blend in a tablespoon of agar powder, which should thicken it similarly to the irish moss.

With the sweetened condensed milk substitute all made, blending in two avocados and the juice of two lemons was easy raw synergy!

I had to use a saucepan to blend all the filling--the beaker in which I made the sweetened condensed milk substitute was too small!


I poured the filling into the cooled, aromatic crust, and put it in the freezer for a couple hours.


Meanwhile, I pulled out of the freezer some leftover "lemon cashew cream cheese" frosting from our anniversary cake (the recipe is about two-thirds down the page), and just before we left for the party, I decorated the pie with the frosting.


My decoration skills weren't great, and with the sun shining in my photography skills were worse, but hopefully you get the idea.

I was a little concerned about showing up to the party with an unasked-for dessert, but as it turned out, the party was missing a dessert to be Leslie's birthday cake, so everything worked out perfectly! I love it when that happens.

So, in Summary--Avocado Pie Another Way!

Crust:

1 1/2 cup pecans, finely chopped

1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1/4 cup palm shortening (or coconut oil, or coconut butter)

1/2 teaspoon good quality salt

1 tablespoon water if necessary

Mix all together with fingers; press into a 9-in pie pan. Bake at 375 for 20 mins, or dehydrate for several hours, or leave as is.

Set aside to chill.

Filling:

2 ripe avocados

Juice of two lemons

1 1/2 cups homemade raw sweetened condensed milk:

Raw sweetened condensed milk:

1 cup almond milk

1/3 cup irish moss gel (made with vanilla and erythritol)

1/4 cup erythritol

1/4 cup coconut sugar

1 tablespoon lecithin

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1/2 teaspoon white stevia powder

1/2 teaspoon good quality salt

Blend all together until smooth. Pour into cooled pie crust. Freeze until firm.

Raw Whipped Topping: Recipe is here.

You could either cover the whole pie with the topping, or blob it on as I did (I'm sure anyone else could do that more elegantly!) --I think it's nice to have some of that beautiful green showing.

Please let me know if anything isn't clear--there were a lot of steps in that process and lots of thoughts along the way, but the outcome is really quite simple!

Nutrient density and caloric density in desserts--your thoughts?

Avocado Pie Teaser, Immersion Blender Talk Again; Cherry Smoothie

The avocado pie was not only perfect for Cinco de Mayo, but also ended up as the perfect birthday cake for Leslie!

I will share the recipe, but I want to talk about immersion blenders again, and I think it'll make this post too long if I try to cover both. The immersion blender talk is relevant to the avocado pie recipe, as I made the pie mostly using the immersion blender in order to ensure it could be made without a Vita-mix.


As much as I love my Vita-mix and wouldn't be without it, I also wouldn't be without an immersion blender. I love its lightness, convenience and easy cleanup. Over two years ago, back before I had a Vita-mix, I wrote a post including some tips for how to make goodies using an immersion blender, and I still agree with what I said then. However, the search for the right machine continues. At the time I wrote that post, I had a Kitchenaid handblender. But when my third one in three years bit the dust last December, I knew it was time to look elsewhere. 


My luck didn't quite turn around when I bought the Juiceman handblender. My hopes were up because it had 550W, so was more powerful, but when it arrived, the design turned out to be a bit flimsy, and the blade was too small to be really effective.

After a month or two, a more serious problem surfaced. The "on" button tended to stick in the "on" position, which was very scary, and the power level would surge without warning. An hour or so on the phone, and I was promised a refund (which I'm still waiting for).


Meanwhile, I went back and read lots of reviews both on Amazon and everywhere else I could find, and ended up ordering the MiTutto Miallegro, also 550W. This was so well reviewed, and I was excited.

Turns out, it's built on a very similar design to the Juiceman blender, which means the Juiceman attachments fit it, so I have some spare parts. But it's much better made. The "on" button is sealed so nothing could stick in there to make it stick in the "on" position (in case that was the problem). The motor sounds better, and seems more effective. 

I love being able to blend a thick smoothie right in the cup!

This was a Cherry-Spirulina smoothie:

1/3 cup unsweetened almond breeze

1/2 cup snow/ice

6 frozen cherries

3g spirulina

1t xanthan gum

stevia

erythritol

pinch vanilla powder

1t coconut butter

The blender coped with the ice just fine, crushed it right up. It's cold here, so the coconut butter was solid, and there ended up being little niblets of coconut butter throughout the smoothie. I actually loved that! I often sprinkle a few cacao nibs into smoothies like this for texture, and I didn't have to do that. My suspicion is that part of the reason why the Vita-mix homogenizes the unmelted coconut butter so thoroughly even in the presence of ice is because it heats everything up more, and it may be better, from the oxidation perspective, not to have stuff heated up. 

I haven't yet tried blending greens with it, but will report in when I have.

Bottom line: it's not the same as a Vita-mix, but as I said in my old post, I think it's better than a cheap upright blender, and it's a wonderful tool. Still early days with this model--I really hope it lasts longer than its predecessors.

Do you have an immersion blender that you like?

Tomorrow, the avocado pie!