I’m all about the freeze-dried fruit right now – perfect for colour and flavour. Great to use in pieces or powder form. And it’s been a while since I was all about the balls.

So, if these are gluten-free, refined sugar-free, dairy-free, egg-free, raw, vegan, healthy treats – how is it that they are so creamy and delicious?

I’m glad you asked! Cashews. The answer is cashews. When I accidentally put some cashews in a recipe a few months ago, the layer of the slice I was making suddenly got creamier. If you think about it, chewing on a raw cashew feels and tastes creamy. So it makes sense. Creaminess without the dairy. Winning.

So far I’d only used freeze-dried passionfruit and raspberry powder, but I came across strawberry pieces and the thought of strawberries and cream popped into my head.

Out came the food processor. In went a few simple ingredients. Mere moments later the tastiest little morsels to come out of my kitchen in quite some time. In my Little Sister’s words ‘your best invention since lasagne’ {that’s a BIG call from her}!

What do I need?
2 cups of raw cashews
1 cup of freeze-dried strawberries {although I will be trying these with different flavours!}
12 medjool dates {pitted}
1.5 teaspoons of organic vanilla bean paste
a sprinkle of Himalayan rock salt

Now what do I do with it?
Keeping strawberries to the side for now, combine all other ingredients into your food processor and whiz until they are combined. It’s okay if some of your cashews are a little chunky, I like a hit of chunk occasionally. Once the first four ingredients are well blended, add in your strawberries and give the processor a few blitzes to make sure they are well combined. As with the cashews, there’s no need to pulverise the strawbs.

Roll the mixture into small balls then pop them in the freezer for a couple of hours.

Here’s my big tip: don’t take them out of the freezer once they’re frozen to keep them in the fridge. They will evaporate. I’m not even kidding. At least in the freezer they have some chance of lasting until tomorrow …

{Sorry for the lack of photo of finished product. See final paragraph above as explanation.}