My sister and family are here visiting this week and they brought us about 10 pounds of freshly picked cherries from my brother-in-law’s parent’s house (they have about 7 cherry trees…jealous!). It was like Christmas morning when this loot arrived. I’m eating these beauties by the fist full. Adriana is going wild over them. It’s a good week. We pitted and froze a bunch to make 1-ingredient cherry sorbet in the Vitamix (my nephews loved it) and I’m dreaming up other ways to use them before they go bad!
This gorgeous Cherry-Strawberry Chia Seed Fool is a festive dessert I came up with for Canada Day tomorrow. I actually thought of it in the middle of the night last night and by some stroke of luck I actually remembered the idea this morning. In lieu of heavy dairy cream, I used full-fat coconut cream and whipped it with a touch of cane sugar and vanilla bean powder. So incredibly simple and delicious. For the berry part, I made a cherry-strawberry chia seed jam with some vanilla bean, fresh lemon juice, and a secret ingredient – a teaspoon of finely grated beet for a bolder red color (but that’s totally optional). It turned out so lovely layered in parfait glasses. Many traditional fool recipes that I came across fold the berries into the cream until it’s pretty uniform in color, but I prefer the layered look so I did it my way. Then you can swirl it all together as you eat it. Total bliss! I also added some toasted sliced almonds and flaked coconut on top for some crunch. A little lemon zest would be nice too.
A vegan twist on the classic berry fool! I used whipped vanilla bean coconut cream and paired it with a delightful cherry-strawberry chia seed jam with lemon and vanilla. This dish requires some advance preparation so be sure to put the cans of coconut milk in the fridge the day before so the coconut cream can solidify. The jam also requires cooling, so you'll need at least 2 hours to chill it in the fridge before layering the dessert.
Tip: If for some reason your chia seed jam didn't thicken enough after chilling (this might be the case if the water wasn't cooked off enough), stir in another tablespoon and chill it for another hour. That should do the trick!
I’m keeping this short and sweet today because I have a big cookbook deadline looming. Thank you so much for your patience with my infrequent blog posts lately. I am dying to get back into it!
Wishing my fellow Canadians a very happy Canada Day tomorrow. Also, happy 4th of July to our friends south of the border. (By the way, you can easily turn this into a red, white, and blue dessert by adding blueberries.) I hope you have a fun and safe week filled with all the goodness summer has to offer!
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