This dessert brought itself together – no plan at all. In fact, that was my dilemma. I was cooking for a group and wasn’t sure what I was offering for dessert yet. However, I had used the seeds of a papaya to make a salad dressing and had scooped out all the fruit to use for “something.” And since I had little direction but some inspiration, I figured I’d make a pie crust using almonds, dates, lemon zest, sea salt and coconut oil. I figured, it’s the eve of Valentines – shouldn’t I put chocolate in there? However I had one person’s dairy intolerance to consider, so the thought of making something bright and fruity drew me in. The zest I used in the crust gave me a beautiful lemon to use so I add it to the papaya and along with a can of coconut milk. I had this smoothie of a concoction and alas, a pudding to put in my pie – final thought – they’ll have plenty of chocolate to eat on Valentines but a lemon papaya coconut pie…this was a gift of pure whim and imagination.
Here’s how it goes:
*In order to make 1 batch of pudding, you will need 3 cups of liquid. This could be milk, fruit puree, juice, whatever you have.
- total 3 cups of papaya puree, coconut milk and the juice of 1 lemon – blended together
- 2/3 cup organic sugar
- 1/4 cup organic corn starch
- dash of sea salt
- teaspoon vanilla
Method:
- In a saucepan, combine sugar, corn starch, sea salt
- Turn stove onto medium high heat, begin to stir and slowly pour in your smoothie mixture
- Continue to stir until your mixture comes to a boil – it’ll take a couple minutes
- Once bubbling, keep stirring, making sure you’re scraping the bottom of the pan as you do, for 1 MINUTE.
- After 1 whole minute, turn the heat off, stir in vanilla.
- I waited to add this pudding to the pie crust until it had cooled a bit, since I didn’t want to melt the coconut oil. A thick layer of pudding had formed on the top which lucky for me was a treat – and of course an opportunity to make sure it all tasted good enough to offer. Oh ya.
- So once cooled a bit, have a taste of that thick pudding layer on top and pour the rest into the crust 🙂
Crust:
- 1 cup of almonds
- 1 cup of dates
- dash of sea salt
- 1/4 cup coconut oil
- zest of 1 lemon
Process all ingredients together in your Cuisinart or food processor. Press into a 9 in pie plate all over the bottom and up the edges.
Decorate with edible flowers. Refrigerate your pie until serving time. Enjoy!