Here is the roundup of entries, in no particular order:


Deanna of The Mommy Bowl made Coconut Chocolate Chip Sort-of Cake Pops.


Sasha of Blyssful Health also made Carrot Cake Pops.


Jennifer of The Robertsons of Mumbai made Chocolate Orange Cake Pops.

Bitt of Bitt of Raw made Double Chocolate Mesquite Madness Cake Pops.

Canadians love their doughnuts. So much so, they have become part of our culture. Timbits, the brand name of bite-sized doughnut balls sold at the popular coffee shop franchise Tim Hortons, has become a generic term for what the United States and other parts of the world call "donut holes." They were first introduced in 1976 and come in various flavours like chocolate glazed, honey dip, jelly-filled, sour cream glazed and apple fritter.

I haven't had a Timbit in over 15 years, so I thought it was about time I created my own version in the form of rawbits. This recipe came about after Lisa showed me a raw bread technique using a particular ingredient that helps obtain a soft and spongy bread-like texture. I thought this would be a fabulous way to create raw doughnuts, so I started playing with different flours, flavours and sweeteners in order to come up with a version that has a similar doughy texture and is as tasty as the real thing.


Chocolate rawbits
1 1/2 cups almond meal
3/4 cup coconut flakes, ground
1/3 cup flax meal
1/2 cup raw cacao powder
1/2 tsp vanilla powder (or seeds of 1 vanilla bean)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup chopped dates, soaked until soft
3 tbsp Irish moss paste (see instructions here)

1. In a food processor, pulse the almond meal, ground coconut, flax meal, cacao powder, vanilla powder, cinnamon and salt  to combine.
2. Add the maple syrup, chopped dates and Irish moss and process until the mixture forms into sticky dough. Put the mixture in the fridge for about 20 minutes to allow it to firm up.
3. Remove the dough from the fridge and roll small balls with your hands, about 1 tablespoon each. Place the balls on a dehydrator tray and dehydrate overnight. The balls should be slightly firm on the outside and no longer sticky.
4. Dip the balls in the chocolate glaze (recipe below) and place on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. Refrigerate for about an hour to dry. Store rawbits in a covered container in the fridge.

Chocolate glaze
3 tbsp coconut oil, melted
3 tbsp pure maple syrup
1 tbsp raw cacao powder, sifted

1. Whisk together all ingredients in a small bowl. Keep at room temperature until ready to use.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have read my complaints about having to spend this past weekend at a work conference in Ottawa. There's not much to be said about sitting in a poorly-lit hotel conference room taking copious notes and photographs for two days straight, but I was grateful when I was freed from work at 4 p.m. on Saturday, giving me the opportunity to visit with friends and explore the city's vegan community.

Saturday night's dinner was spent at Cafe My House, a contemporary cafe-style restaurant on a busy street lined with strip malls. My eyes lit up as soon as I saw the sign—I could spot the word "vegan" a mile away!


Luckily, we made it in time for their dinner-hour opening. The menu was quite impressive. Clearly, it's designed to meet the needs of health-conscious diners, and included raw, vegan and gluten-free options as well as two non-vegan dishes. The description of each dish focused on whole foods, nourishing ingredients and unique but appealing flavours combinations. The cafe's goal is to "make vegan food appealing, approachable and available to vegans and non-vegans alike," and I think they hit it spot on.

My husband ordered the tofu mushroom "steak" that included tofu marinated with spicy ginger sauce, juicy mushrooms, roasted kale, grilled veggies, lemon-tahini pesto and rice. The presentation was beautiful, and the flavours of the tofu marinate and pesto were amazing.


I ordered the raw zucchini pasta salad with dried cranberries, spring mix and a fantastic pine nut-dill pesto. This was absolutely superb. The creamy pesto had the perfect flavour balance and kept calling me back for another bite. This is a dish I would love to recreate at home.


We were also offered samples of their cilantro-mango juice, which included a combination of cucumber, cilantro, pineapple and mango. It was sweet and refreshing, with a wonderful cilantro scent.


The next morning, we hit up Zen Kitchen for brunch with our friends Dave and Kristina. I was particularly excited to try this place after watching The Restaurant Adventures of Caroline & Dave, a 13 episode TV series that followed their path to opening the restaurant in June 2009. It was Caroline who inspired me to attend the Natural Gourmet Institute's Vegan Baking Bootcamp Intensive last summer.

The atmosphere of the restaurant is just as I had imagined: clean and colourful, with a gorgeous custom bar for Dave's impressive wine selection. The brunch menu was short but the selections were enticing.


I swayed from my usual fruit-based breakfasts and ordered a dish that included cinnamon-covered apple fritters, fresh fruit, and homemade pepita and goji berry granola with vanilla bean cream. It was essentially like a granola-yogourt bowl with doughnuts! The granola was very similar to what I make at home, but it was a little too sweet for my tastebuds.


My husband ordered the breakfast burrito with scrambled tofu, Mornay sauce, tomatillo salsa, guacamole and spicy rice. He devoured it!


For our friends Dave and Kristina, this was the first introduction to a vegan meal. Kristina ordered the buckwheat pancakes, tempeh bacon and fresh fruit. She seemed very happy, and she encouraged us to share bites from each others' plates so we could take advantage of the whole experience (I think she had a hidden agenda to get at one of my fritters).


Unfortunately, Dave has an allergy to soy, so his choices were even more limited. He decided to play it safe and ordered the gourmet salad and a side of French fries. He couldn't stop raving about the maple lemon dressing though!


With meals like this to look forward to when visiting Canada's capital city, I will gladly return for another work conference any time. Both restaurants were a welcomed change to Toronto's vegan options, and I actually can't wait to visit again next month! If you are visiting the city yourself, I strongly encourage you to plan your meals at Cafe My House and Zen Kitchen.

Have you ever thought about baking with asparagus? As in grating it up and throwing it in a batch of muffins? Well, that's what I did yesterday, without hesitation, because these are the kinds of crazy things I do for the SOS Kitchen Challenge.


And boy, was I pleased with the outcome: light, flavourful, herb-scented muffins that are coloured with flecks of red sundried tomatoes and bright green asparagus. And the best part (I know you'll love this!) is that they're completely free of all sugars and sugar subsitutes. Yep, no sugar. None. Nadda. Zero. Zilch.

I wouldn't suggest trying to grate asparagus by hand, unless you want to grate off your finger in the process. It's much easier to put the grating disc on your food processor and feed the stalks through the feed tube while the processor is running. I used about half a batch of asparagus to get one grated cup full. After they've baked and cooled, you can enjoy these colourful treats alongside a big bowl of soup or salad.


1 cup spelt flour
3/4 cup unbleached flour (or more spelt)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 cup nondairy milk
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup grated asparagus

Ever since discovering the wonders of raw dessert-making, I've been having fun playing with raw cacao in its different forms, including powder, beans and nibs. Yet I've been hesitant to play with butter and paste because of the cost and inconvenience—both usually have to be ordered online and cost anywhere from $20 to $40 for a small chunk.

My curiosity got the best of me recently, so I took the plunge and ordered a boxful of raw ingredients from Canadian whole foods distributor Real Raw Food. One area I had yet to experiment in was raw chocolate candy, and so when my parcel arrived last week, I took a deep breath and dove right in.


I have no doubt that raw chocolate candy-making can be just as intricate a process as any other, but I am in all respects still a toddler in the realm of a chocolatier. Most of the basic recipes I have come across seem to call for equal parts cacao butter, cacao powder and sweetener. From there, you can experiment with different sweeteners and flavour additions in order to achieve the taste and consistency you're after.

Cacao butter is the pure oil (or fat) of the cacao bean. It melts at approximately 90 degrees, which means it is even firmer than coconut oil at room temperature. The cost is definitely worth it because this stuff took my desserts to a whole new level. I came up with the cutest little mini Easter cream eggs with a vanilla cashew cream filling, which were inspired by Bitt's raw Cadbury cream eggs from last year. This was such a fun-filled creation, and I'm so happy with the outcome. Enjoy!


Raw Easter cream eggs
Chocolate coating:
(Adapted from Bitt's coating)
1/2 cup  melted cacao butter
1/2 cup raw cacao powder, sifted
1/4 cup raw agave nectar
1/4 cup yacon powder (or other powdered sweetener)
1/4 tsp vanilla powder (or seeds of 1 vanilla bean)
pinch of sea salt
egg-shaped candy molds

1. Whisk together all ingredients until smooth. You may need to warm up the mixture if the cacao butter firms up too quickly. You can do this by using a double boiler on the lowest heat setting to keep it warm while whisking, or by putting the mixture in the dehydrator for a few minutes. Take care not to get any water in the chocolate mixture!
2. Fill your egg-shaped candy molds and place them in the freezer for about 10 minutes.
3. Remove the mold from the freezer and scoop out the centres of each mold using a paring knife or small spoon. Fill the holes with the cream filling (recipe below) and then cover the top with more chocolate. Return to the fridge or freezer to harden.

Cream filling:
1 cup raw cashews, soaked overnight
1/4 cup raw agave nectar
3 tbsp Irish moss paste (see instructions here)
3 tbsp water
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp vanilla powder (or seeds of 1 vanilla bean)
pinch of sea salt

1. Blend all ingredients in a high-powered blender until smooth. This may take several minutes.

I'm submitting this recipe to Kelly's Spunky Easter Holiday roundup. Check out her blog soon for more Easter recipes!

It seems we all love a good challenge. Lisa and I have decided our idea for a raw cake pop challenge is a go! I hope you're as excited as we are to create a raw vegan version of the ever-popular cake pop, because you've got four weeks to get creative and enter to win some amazing prizes.


How to enter:

1. Create your own version of a cake pop, using only raw vegan ingredients (this can include pure maple syrup). Your cake pop should include a "cake" filling as well as a coating. The flavours are totally up to you so feel free to be creative! You can pick up the little sticks at bulk stores, craft stores or specialty baking stores.

2. Blog about your cake pop creation, including the full recipe and photos, and then come back and let me know via the comment section below. Remember to leave a link back to your post, which Lisa and I will check out and judge. We will also grab one of your photos to include in the entries roundup post at the end of the challenge.

3. To be entered in the challenge you need to post your entry by Friday, April 29, 2011 at midnight. Lisa and I will look through all the entries and narrow them down, using the criteria below, to three finalists. We will recreate the three finalist recipes, host a tasting party with friends and select a winner.

Judging criteria:

• Enticing flavour profile
• Creativity of your cake pop and ingredients
• Overall presentation

Prizes:

• The three finalists will be in a feature post on my blog and and Lisa's (we will recreate the recipes and photograph them).
• First Place winner will receive a package of raw vegan essentials and some sweet treats created by us.

Thanks to Gibbs-Smith Publisher,

• Second Place winner will receive a copy of Everyday Raw Desserts by Matthew Kenney
• Third Place winner will receive a copy of Everyday Raw by Matthew Kenney

We can't wait to see what you create. Have fun and good luck!