I decided to make this recipe, based on a WILDFIT® recipe I recently received, for a Christmas celebration and it was such a hit that everyone asked for a repeat for our New Year's gathering! My version has a little twist as I decided to make a different crust, using my recipe for the pumpkin spice cookies. Depending on the size of the pie dish you have, you might need the whole recipe or not. For my pie dish (9"), I had a bit of leftover "dough" that I made into 3 more cookies - why not? - Nothing is wasted!
But before I give you the recipe for this, I just wanted to leave a quick note, as a friend of mine ate almost the whole pie, the second time around and she asked me if it was ok to do so. She knows I only use clean, natural ingredients and never use refined sugars, so she knew that it wouldn't hurt her, but I could sense a food devil and food angel dialog there... I told her that it wouldn't do any harm to her however, it's not balanced - no matter if you're skinny (like she is) or not. eating too much sugar at once will eventually contribute to slamming your pancreas with more sugar than it should. In my friend's case, I know that she doesn't really eat a lot of sugar, so I wasn't very worried but what I see happening a lot out there is that the food devil uses the excuse that "it's a healthy dessert", to shut down the food angel and have it his way. So when you make a dessert like this, be mindful - it still has sugar and high content in fat as well!
Ok so to make this dessert, you use the mix in the pumpkin spice cookies, but instead of rolling them into small balls, you are going to put most of the dough in a pie dish. I put aluminum foil in the bottom of the pie dish so that it doesn't stick and it makes it easy to take it out of the pie dish to cool down and get crunchy. Then I put the base back into the pie dish (without the aluminum foil), put the pudding on top, and get it to the freezer.
BASE:
Ingredients
1 cup smooth Almond Butter
1 cup Coconut Sugar
1 Tbsp Chia Seeds
3 Tbsp Water
1 Tsp Vanilla extract
3 Tsp Baking powder (or 1 Tsp Baking soda)
1/2 Tsp Pumpkin spice mix
a pinch of Salt
a pinch of Cinnamon (just to sprinkle on top)
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350F and line a pie dish with either aluminum foil.
Mix the chia seeds in a glass with the water- let it sit for about 5 minutes, while you're putting the other ingredients together.
In a bowl, mix all the other ingredients together and combine the soaked chia seeds (you'll see the water will be absorbed by the seeds).
With your hands roll the dough into a big ball and place it on the pie sheet.
Gently flatten the ball with a fork until you have a thin layer on and finally, sprinkle with cinnamon before taking it to the oven. You can use the rest of the dough (if any left) to make cookies like instructed on my pumpkin spice cookies recipe.
Bake for 13-15 min, remove from the oven and let it cool down so that the base gets crunchy. (Note: If you use aluminum foil, you can take it out to cool on a flat surface, and to remove it from the foil - once it's cool).
TOP:
Ingredients
2 cups of pine nuts raw
8 whole pitted dates
1 Tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp Cacao powder
1/4 cup Cacao butter (solid)
2 Tbsp coconut sugar
2 - 3 Mandarin oranges (for garnish only)
Directions
Pre-soak the pine nuts in approx 4 cups of water, in the fridge overnight
Melt the cacao butter
Remove the water from the pine nuts, and in a high-speed blender mix all the ingredients, until smooth. You might need to process it several times until it becomes a creamier texture and light brown color.
Pour the mix into the pie dish, on top of the crust, and even it out before taking it to the fridge. Let it sit for 2 hours.
Before serving add the small mandarin pieces to the top of your pie, decorating it as you wish. Enjoy!
Recipe adapted from the WILDFIT®recipe Pudding Pie with Pistachio Crust.