I never thought I had a sweet tooth

…until I started the raw food diet. Some of you who also follow the Beauty Box blog may know I’ve been eating a raw diet for two months now and wrote about it here. I decided to keep any health or diet-related issues to the BB blog and write about my life in Japan here.

But, today’s post is not really about beauty and it’s just about me in my apartment on a lazy Sunday.

I felt kind of blah and tired out from a full-on but very fun Saturday — I was not up to doing any work, but I wasn’t too zonked out to watch 10 hours of non-stop TV. My hands felt restless, so I cranked up The Gipsy Kings and made this:

I would say this is my biggest raw achievement so far: a raw strawberry shortcake that doesn’t contain any dairy, gluten, or refined sugar. But it tasted sinfully decadent and turned the Sunday blues into an evening of simple pleasure.

I’d like to add that this post has something slightly related to Nippon: the strawberry shortcake is a ubiquitous dessert in Japan, be it in a restaurant or café, and it happens to be my favouritest cake ever.

Here’s the recipe if you are interested. Be warned, this is a dense shortcake and not fluffy like “normal” ones.

Cake
3/4 cup soaked dates, chopped
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon vanilla
Pinch salt
1 cup loosely packed left-over pulp from making pecan milk
1 cup dried coconut
1/2 cup cashews

Whipped Cream
1/2 cup cashews
1/2 cup macadamia nuts
1 cup coconut cream
1/8 cup agave nectar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon vanilla
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoon cold-pressed coconut oil

Adapted from The Sunny Raw Kitchen

Press the cake into a mold, then layer strawberry slices, and finally the whipped cream. Freeze for 45 min and then repeat the process.

It took me a little over half an hour to get everything ready for the first layer, so this cake clocked in at two hours. I was never into normal baking, but un-baking fits me like a snug glove.

What do you do to lift your spirits?

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