Things I Eat: Rawsome Cinnamon Rolls

I don't understand

It's always odd to me that a good bulk of people mentally and physically push themselves out of their comfort zones - but when it comes to food - say "vegan" or "healthy" or "vegetable" and people have utter meltdowns.

Sure, there is a lot of dumb information out there and the health industry makes money off of offering people addictive foods and making claims about losing weight. This is because as an industry, it makes money keeping people from succeeding and keeping them addicted to unhealthy amounts of things they provide.

Sometimes it's a food product and sometimes it's concept or idea - like workout videos or gym membership or. . .whatever these things are:

You can check out my post, The Food Industry & Being an Adult for more rant.

Rant over.

Since I am basically living the life of a vegan who can eat meat (because saying I can't have dairy or eggs is too confusing to people) I often miss pastries. I love a good cinnamon roll so I went off to find out if something exists that I could eat. 

I found this blog, This Rawsome Vegan Life - and had to make this Cinnamon Rolls with Coconut Frosting and Caramel Raisin Filling. I have never really done much "raw" stuff, other than throwing a salad together or what I eat off the floor - so, I guess we all have eating a "raw diet" but, to make a pastry that is raw? Intriguing!

While I looked over the ingredients wondering how complex it was going to be - it dawned on me, raw basically means "easy."

I did a little research, of course.

Raw Diets

A raw diet or raw foodism is the dietary practice of eating only uncooked, unprocessed foods. You never cook anything. In this way, it's hard to mess up something that is raw. It's like messing up trail mix. If you like all the stuff, you can't really mess it up - you just put in too much oats or chocolate or something. But you don't overcook it or undercook it.You can also eat any part of it at any time. 

No more, "don't eat that batter, it has raw egg in it and you might get sick." Just eat it. 

The concept behind the raw diet is that food loses nutrients when cooked. And anything processed is bad. It's cool to blend things like smoothies and dehydrate things - you just never saute anything. Most raw diets don't contain meat because a lot of meat you find in stores can be contaminated with junk that would be killed during cooking. However, there are those who do, like Derek Nance. 

And like. . .probably our ancestors. 

Making the Rolls

Right - down to the business. Here is the recipe as presented by Emily the Rawsome Vegan:

Dough:

• 3/4 cup gluten-free oats
• 3/4 cup buckwheat groats
• 3/4 cup raisins 
• 3/4 cup dates
• Pinch of salt (optional)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon water
• Dash of cinnamon

Pulse the oats and buckwheat groats in your food processor until they become a rough flour. Add the rest of the ingredients and process until it all begins to stick together. Roll the dough into a square about 1/4-1/2 cm thick. Put this in the fridge for 1-2 hours.

Caramel raisin filling:

• 1 cup dates
• 1/4-1/2 cup coconut water 
• Cinnamon powder, to taste
• 1/4 cup raisins

Blend all the ingredients together - except the raisins - until smooth and thick like a paste. Set aside.

Coconut frosting:

• 1 heaping cup young coconut meat
• 3 tablespoons melted coconut oil
• 4 tablespoons agave syrup (or other preferred sweetener) 
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract 
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• Water, as needed

Blend all the ingredients together until it's smooth and drizzly. Set aside.

Assembly:

Once chilled, the dough is much more manageable. Cut the dough into strips and spread the filling evenly on each one, then sprinkle on the raisins and gently roll the strips up. Cover with the frosting.

What I Did

Total cost - $17 for 5 batches

You need to know what goes into a recipe - and it's not just the assembly. You have to squire the stuff, right?

I headed to Whole Foods to get the stuff I needed. Mostly the dates and buckwheat groats. My Whole Foods has a bulk section where I get most of my stuff. A lot of things in Whole Foods is very expensive - but normally the bulk section is a steal. In general, bulk sections are always cheaper. 

For example, I got a pound of buckwheat groats for about $2 when a pound Bob's Red Mill Brand would cost about $5.  

I did not make the coconut frosting - and I think I am happy without it. I couldn't actually find a green coconut (green coconuts, not the brown ones, are the young ones with the softer meat inside. Coconuts have meat? Yes, the flesh of any animal, plant or fruit is called its meat.)

I also decided to do all this cooking rawing at my parents house. Good thing, too. They have more space in their kitchen and if I break things - well . . . 

I think I broke my Mom's blender, by the way. It stopped working when the dates from the dough got caught in the base and wouldn't move. The dates and raisins act as the binding agent and really BIND. 

Do this in a good food processor. You want something with a wide blade base. Or if you have a really powerful extractor thing, use that. Most conventional blenders require liquid to work. I found the food processor easy to use and clean. The only downside, it's smaller and I had to do things in two batches.

Filling next to a strip of the dough

However, it took no time at all to process the dough - it turned lumpy pretty quickly and was easy to handle. I threw it down on our bakery board and began to roll it out and all that.

And by "all that" I meant I started to eat it. It's good, people.

Since I was eating as I was going and very impatient, I didn't refrigerate anything. That's for losers and people who passed Kindergarten. 

The filling was pretty easy, too. Much easier for the food processor to process. This time, I chopped up the dates more (two got in there with seeds - you want to get those seeds out before you put the stuff together). I actually didn't read the instructions too well because I made my filling by blending the dates AND raisins. If you want to have some raisins in there for texture, do that. If not, no big deal. I liked not having whole raisins in it. 

The filling was also delicious. I can't even tell you how sweet it was - a perfect sweet, not a processed, refined sugary sweet, the type of sweet that makes your body happy because it's so good. 

Next came me putting the thing together. I think the presentation was really close:

Mine on the right, Emily's on the left

Aftermath

I ate them all. Seriously. This might be the best thing I have made in a long time. They are crunchy, dense, sweet and flavorful. And filling! I saved a couple for breakfast and even after I stuffed myself silly on what I had left, my stomach was happy and I didn't feel greasy or disgusting.

Me having a happy tummy and no hives is basically the best thing that can happen to me after eating.

My Dad ate a little and shrugged and went back to making bullets which is about the best you get from the guy. My Mom confessed she doesn't like dates or raisins or. .food. (True story) and when I tried to give some to my friend, Tee, he found he was allergic to buckwheat. He had a feeling he was since his father is.

That meant - ALL FOR MANDA. 

I do think I will make these as squares going forward with the filling sandwiched in-between to layers of the dough. It's easier for me. But, you really could do anything with them. The second batch I made the next day, I added a little coconut oil and that was a pretty nice flavor addition.

When you are mixing raw stuff together, it's really easy to substitute. You could totally not use the dates but use another dried fruit. You know, anything.

For storing them - like you didn't eat them all - you probably want to refrigerate them because of the dates. Dates normally should be refrigerated. Or you can store them in my belly.

Image Credit
The machine from greatist.com