How to make Plant-Based Strawberry Tiramisu

Let's make a plant-based tiramisu in the Blue Mountains of Ontario, Canada. Welcome back to the Whole Food Plant-Based Cooking Show where we make plant-based cooking easy. I'm Jill and today we are going to make a strawberry tiramisu because here in Ontario it is strawberry season and it's also Canada Day in a couple of days so what better than to make a strawberry cake to celebrate. So we're going to jump right in and all of our pantry ingredients today are from our partner Essential Organics who carry over 600 organic products and if you want to check them out you can use the code plantbaseeasy at checkout for 10% off your first order. All right to start this you want to preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and we are going to get our oats going because that is going to be the base of our cake. It's oats and almond meal. So if you've ever watched the show you know that I don't buy oat flour. I make oat flour from rolled oats. It's so affordable, so quick and easy. So I'm going to put that this is one cup of rolled oats in my blender and you don't even need a powerful blender for this. You can just use whatever you have. Even a coffee grinder would work. We're just going to grind this up until it's a flour. You don't want to grind it too fine. Maybe just a little less rough than your almond flour. There we go. I don't like to over grind the oats to a really fine powder because then I feel like it makes the cake a little bit too dense and this helps to keep it a little bit fluffy even though it is going to be dense because it's plant-based. We're not using any refined ingredients so it is just slightly dense. Here we have three quarters of a cup of almond meal and I like to use the fine almond meal because it already has the skins of the almond removed so it stays a lighter color like this. You can definitely use the almond meal which is the almond that's ground with the skins on but it just creates a little bit darker cake. All right now we have one teaspoon of baking powder and half teaspoon of baking soda. We're just going to whisk those up a little bit just to get them well mixed before we add our wet ingredients. Okay for the wet ingredients and for the sweetener just like the flours I don't use refined ingredients so our sweetener is going to be from dates. This is half a cup of pitted dates then we've got a teaspoon of vanilla extract and one and a half cups of plant-based milk and unsweetened plant-based milk because the sweetness is going to come from those dates. This is an almond milk but you can use whatever plant-based milk you like and I'm only going to use about half of this to blend the dates. If you use too much liquid when you're blending your dates the dates don't get pulverized enough so we're just going to use about half. We'll use the same blender and we're going to blend this until those dates are completely pulverized. There we go. Now you're just going to pour that in with your dry ingredients and I'm going to use the remainder of the milk. I'm going to pour that in my container and screw the lid back on and I'm just going to swish this around just so that we can get all the rest of that goodness out of that container. There we go. All right pour it in. I'm going to whisk that up again and it is a pretty liquidy batter which also helps to make it a little bit lighter and fluffier. All right then you're going to need a 9x9 brownie pan which I already lined with parchment paper so that it's really easy to get that cake out because we're going to be cutting that in half and layering it so you want to be able to get it out of your pan very easily. So whatever tin you have or a glass one make sure you put a piece of parchment in it. Then we're just going to pour that into our pan just like that. You don't even really need to flatten the top with a spatula because it's liquidy enough where you can just kind of self level just like that. All right so now we're going to put this in the oven for 27 minutes on 350. All right while our cake is in the oven I thought we'd check in on our sprouts. This is our sprout kit from The Sprouting Company and it has been such a help for us while we're traveling to help stay on track and stay healthy and eat healthy. This is our latest batch of broccoli sprouts. We're about three days in so we're about ready to harvest today and it's got this really nice all-in-one stand here which is so strong and really great for traveling especially because it's really strong. And once we get done with that we always keep our sprouts in the refrigerator in a big container like this. We just pile them in there and then we can easily just get them out, put some on our breakfast, put them on our lunch and dinner. We're trying to get sprouts into every meal somehow. Of course it won't be in today's recipe because it's a dessert but we're going to try to get it in our other meals at least. And if you want to get a kit of your own there'll be a link in the description and if you use the code plantbasedeasy at checkout you get 10% off your order. All right now we're going to move on to our cashew cream frosting. All right for our frosting I have a cup and a half of cashews that I did a quick soak on so I just used some hot water and I poured it over for about a half an hour maybe an hour would be better. You can also just you know soak this for two or three hours just with lukewarm water. So all that's going into our blender and we soak them so that it will blend up better and it will be creamier. Because I don't have my big powerful blender that can blend cashews from dry into a really nice frosting this isn't quite as powerful so soaking is really essential if you want to make it smooth. And we have a third of a cup of dates, a half teaspoon of vanilla extract, one tablespoon of lemon juice, and then a half a cup of water. Now this part is a little challenging but one thing you can do with your Nutribullet is that while it's blending you can shake the whole machine or you can tip it so that that air pocket doesn't get in there and it will continue to blend otherwise you're going to be taking it in and out of your blender to scrape down the sides a million times. So just shake the machine it's okay it can withstand it. All right so now we're just going to blend this until it's a really nice creamy frosting. There we go there we are our frosting is ready so now all we're waiting on is for our cake to finish and when that cake is finished you want to set it out on a cooling rack and let it cool completely before we start assembling. 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It doesn't have to be all the way to the ends that will be fine. If you want to fold it around the ends that's fine too and I'll show you why in just a second. I'm just going to peel your cake out here and I'm even going to peel it off the bottom. So I just kind of flop it onto my palm and gently pull that off and keep it on the counter though. All right now you want to cut this in half equally and then you're also going to cut off of the long side here. You're going to cut off just the edge of each just to make it look kind of clean and so that it fits into the bread pan better because it will be just a little bit wider than your bread pan especially in the bottom. They seem to be a little bit less wide on the bottom. Okay there we go. Now we're going to place one of those. Got to do it really gentle so you don't break your cake. You're going to put that down in the bottom of your bread loaf. Okay just like that. Then you're going to take a little bit of your whipped cream or whipped cream frosting about half and you're going to put it on top of that cake. Spread it out pretty evenly. So this essentially is going to keep your cake really nice and clean. If you try to decorate this free form at this point it's going to slump and that frosting is going to ooze out the sides. So this way we can make it in this little form and then we can put it back in the refrigerator and let it kind of set up more so that when you cut it it doesn't just you know deflate your whole cake and ooze the toppings out everywhere. So you want to get it really pretty evenly spread. Okay a little bit more and then I like to even use these at the end when we put our second layer on the top because the tops are usually just a little bit wider on the top. I put these those edge pieces on the outside of the parchment paper just so I can keep it really nice and uniform tall. All right next you're going to need some strawberries. So for the total recipe you're going to need just a little less than a pound of strawberries. So I would just buy a pound and then cut what you need and I just quartered them into little chunks and you're just going to put a bunch of those on that layer and some of them you want to put like the flat side out so that when you do peel this paper back you'll see frosting then strawberry frosting then strawberry just looks a little bit nicer if you can do that. So I'll put those nicer looking ones on the outside or on the edge. And if you're loving our recipes and want to help us make plant-based cooking easy follow the link in the description and become a supporting member today. All right then you just fill that middle up with the rest of your strawberries. You know you can fill it pretty full and then you'll want to take a few extra strawberries probably some bigger strawberries and save them for the top layer and you can just decorate that kind of any way you want but I'll show you in the end how I'm going to do mine. All right there we go now you're going to take your your remaining cake here put it on the top of that and don't press down you can just just lightly because if you press it down that cashew cream is going to go squirting out the sides you don't want that. You're going to take the rest of your cashew cream on the top and you want to try to keep it on the top of the cake and that's why I keep these little pieces here so if I do this and I stick these kind of on the edge just like that it keeps that cashew layer from oozing down over the edge of your cake. Put it there now just kind of lightly tuck it in there just to hold that up okay and then you can fold it down a little bit and spread your frosting out here and you don't have to do a super really pretty uh you know decorating here or smoothing that top because we still have some dusted cocoa and strawberries that are going to decorate the top so you're not even going to see the top of this and when you put this back in the refrigerator to set up this layer is going to you know the the surface of it is going to gray a little it's going to oxidize a little bit but don't worry about that because that top that top layer you're not going to see it at all it's going to be decorated really beautifully. All right so now this is going to go back in the fridge preferably overnight but at least a couple hours before you serve it just so that it can stiffen up a little bit so that it doesn't deflate when you're cutting it so back in the fridge and I'll show you how to decorate the top when it's done. All right our cake is set up and I already pulled it off the paper and put it on a plate and now you're going to need about a tablespoon or maybe half tablespoon of a cocoa powder and we're just going to dust the top and it can go over onto the plate a little bit that's okay too so you can kind of tell because this is a tiramisu you always have that light dusting of cocoa along the top just gives you a little punch of chocolatey flavor because chocolate and strawberries are just magic together. Okay just like that okay and then I sliced some strawberries up just like you know thin little slices I took one of the bigger ones so that I can just kind of go across the top kind of a pretty fan almost press it down just a little bit just like that whoa look at that how pretty all right so now all that's left is a taste so I'll meet you at the table for a taste okay my piece is ready so let's go in for a taste the cake is just slightly sweet then you get the tartness of the strawberry and the creaminess from that cashew cream yum you're gonna love it come on back next week for another great recipe