Cocoa and Carob Rounds

don't usually come across as a dessert or a cookie-type person, at least as far as baking is concerned. Most of the things I used to eat are made with butter and eggs, and, well, frankly many of the substitutes for these things (silken tofu, margarine, etc) suck as far as baking goes. So, I've moved on to raw food desserts. You can mix and match just about any dried fruit or nut in these and get something that will probably taste good. They are quick to make since they require zero time in an oven.

Here's the list of ingredients, for this particular batch.

• 1 cup of dried apricots
• 1 cup of dried figs
• 1 half cup of unbleached almonds
• 1 half cup of pine nuts
• 1 quarter cup of cocoa powder (the good stuff)
• 1 quarter cup of carob powder

Begin by prepping the dried fruit. Dried figs usually have a small woody stem that should be nipped off -- it's not really something you want in your soft, gooey cookie. Once that's done, put all of the fruit in a food processor and blitz to a paste. If it starts to ball up, you can add a tea spoon of water. Once it's blitzed, scoop half of it into a small bowl. We are making two kinds of cookies here.

As prep for one kind of cookie, heat a skillet to medium high heat and add your pine nuts. Don't do this in the oven. Pine nuts are high in fat (good fat), and burn really easily. I do them on the stove, so I can watch them closely, swirl the pan, and listen to the sizzle. If you can smell them, you've burned them! When they are done, move them to the cutting board to cool. As prep for the second kind of cookie, grind up the almonds in the food processor, or smash them or cut them roughly.

Now that all the grinding and toasting is done, take the half of the fruit base that may still be in your food processor and add the cocoa powder. Blitz until evenly combined. Add the almonds, and pulse a few times until JUST combined. Take a spoon and scoop out a spoon of the mixture and roll into a ball. If it's too gooey, you can add more cocoa powder. If it's too dry and crumbly, you can either add more fruit, or you can add a tiny bit of water.

When you've used up all of that mixture, add the other half of the fruit base and repeat with the carob powder and the pine nuts.

For added zing, you can leave the cocoa version slightly gooey and roll the round balls around in the cocoa powder, making a truffle of sorts. You can also use a syringe or a piping tip to inject stuff in the centre of the cookies, or flatten them and top with a big cocoa nib or something. Be creative.

After you're done, stack them in layers on wax paper and put them in the fridge to firm up.

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