Plum Pear Cardamom Crisp

Perhaps not the most summery thing to make, but I was up early on a Sunday morning listening to Joanna Newsom, and I happened to have some plums and lots of pears (but alas, no peaches), and then this was invented, based on the Apple Cherry Crisp recipe from The Everyday Vegan by Dreena Burton. Enjoy!

Plum Pear Cardamom Crisp

Fruit mixture:
5 pears, sliced
2 plums, sliced
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon arrowroot powder
seeds of half a vanilla bean (or maybe 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
1 teaspoon cardamom
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 dash nutmeg
1 dash salt

Crisp topping:
1 cup rolled oats
¼ cup hazelnuts
1 teaspoon cardamom
seeds of half a vanilla bean (or maybe 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
1 dash salt
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon canola oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all fruit mixture ingredients in a lightly oiled baking dish, mix well and set aside (you could do it in another bowl first, but I’m lazy and this way works). Now grind the hazelnuts in a food processor. Add the oats, cardamom, vanilla seeds and salt and process until the oats are mostly ground. Now mix the maple syrup and oil in with your fingers. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the fruit mixture, lightly pat it down, and put the dish in the oven. Bake for about 35 minutes, until bubbling around the edges and lightly browned. Serve with some yogurt or ice cream.

Chocolate Hazelnut Mocha Pie

I was so excited when I first went to the farmer’s market in Vancouver to find out that hazelnuts are grown in BC. They are one of my favourite nuts, and now I can justify buying them more often. You can bet that I’ll be making lots of hazelnut fig granola this summer! I used up the rest of my beloved hazelnut butter to make this delicious pie, but that’s okay because I’ll just get more next time I go to the market!


I actually made this a while ago and gave a bunch of it to my landlord as a thank you for him giving me a bunch of arugula from his garden. My desserts for your arugula and mint – it’s a deal☺

Chocolate Hazelnut Mocha Pie

1 pre-baked pie crust (I used this one, but just about any crust should work – if making a plain white-flour crust, I’d recommend substituting some of the flour with ground-up hazelnuts for extra hazelnut yumminess)
1 cup non-dairy yogurt (I used home-made rice yogurt, but soy would probably be better)
4 tablespoons hazelnut butter
200 g good quality dark chocolate
2 tablespoons demerara sugar (or more, depending on the sweetness of the yogurt)
5 tablespoons coffee
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons powdered egg replacer (or just arrowroot)
Whole hazelnuts for decorating (optional)

Melt the chocolate in a double-boiler (or, like me, by putting the chocolate in a smaller saucepan placed inside a larger one that is filled with 2-3 inches of simmering water). Meanwhile, blend the yogurt and hazelnut butter together. Add the sugar, coffee, vanilla and egg replacer, blending really well. When the chocolate is completely melted, add it to the blender and blend really well. Add this point do a taste test, and if you’d like a the filling a bit sweeter, add more sugar. Now pour the filling into the pie crust, smoothing it out, and decorate with some hazelnuts, if you’d like. Cover it in plastic and pop it in the fridge overnight.

This pie freezes great, too! Oh, how I wish I still had some…

Hazelnut Fig Granola

I adore figs and hazelnuts, and even more in combination. I’ve been dreaming of combining them in granola-form for a while now, and while I was trying to figure out what to take on my recent camping trip, I decided to go for it. Here’s what I came up with, using this recipe as a loose base:

Hazelnut Fig Granola

2 cups rolled oats (although I was thisclose to using barley flakes…maybe next time…)
½ cup flour (I used brown rice flour)
1/3 cup chopped hazelnuts
½ cup flax meal
¼ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons hazelnut butter
3 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 cup chopped dried figs (I prefer black mission figs)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Oil/spray a rimmed baking sheet and set aside. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, hazelnuts, flour, flax, and salt. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the hazelnut butter, oil, molasses and maple syrup until emulsified. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry and mix well. Spread out on the baking sheet and bake for approximately 25 minutes, stirring every 5-10 minutes, until lightly browned. Once taken out of the oven, stir in the figs and voila, done!

Today’s breakfast

Fig anise bread with hazelnut butter, watermelon and some Russian tea I bought over the weekend (isn’t the tin pretty?).

Note to self: hazelnut fig granola. make it.