By Michelle Shearer

We have a lemon tree that is bowed down with fruit about to ripen.  It’s one of my all-time favourite fruit to handle – particularly zesting with an enlivening spray of lemon oil when you hit it with the zesting blades.  I trotted back to the house the other day with about 11 lemons in my basket so had to put my thinking cap on for some lemony recipe ideas.

I love the  idea of Lemon Cream anything but wanted something that wasn’t full to the brim with white flour and sugar (they have their place but not for me this day).  Here is a little experiment that turned out pretty well!

 

Ingredients

Chocolate Pie Base

1.5 cups almond meal
2 teaspoons cocoa powder/raw cacoa
1 cup dates
1 tbspn coconut oil.

Lemon Cream 

3 1/2 cups cashews (soaked for at least an hour or overnight preferably)
6 tablespoons coconut oil
1 cup honey/rice malt syrup/agave
1 cup lemon juice
Zest of 3 lemons
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon turmeric (for colouring -> optional).

Method:

Chocolate Base

Line, with baking paper, a glass rectangular dish.  Make the chocolate base by tossing in all the ingredients in a food processor.  Whizz until a brown dough forms.  press the ‘dough’ into the glass dish until it covers the bottom and is even. Pop in the freezer.

Lemon Cream

Next make the lemon cream (yummmmmm).  Whizz together all the ingredients (except the turmeric if using) for about 10 minutes (depending on your blender, mine is terrible) until you have a beautiful silky smooth cream.  Taste as you go, you may want to add more lemon zest, a tad more salt for taste or lemon juice to thin it out slightly.  If you want it slightly yellow-y start adding the turmeric a little at a time until you get the hue of yellow you like.

Pour the cream over the base and pop back in the freezer for an hour or until set.  Cut it into bars and store, covered, in the fridge or the freezer.  If you decide to keep it in the fridge, be sure to let it defrost for about an hour before eating.

If you make this, let us know what you think, below!