Sugar-free and Vegan Raspberry Fudge

I'm trying my best to cut back on sugar these days. Not completely eradicate, just reduce my intake! It's tough because I have a habitual sweet tooth after dinner. Once I've finished eating my dinner my brain immediately switches to "right, what is for dessert". Normally that would be one of whatever batch of cupcakes I have recently made, but I'd like to kick that habit in favour of something without wheat and sugar! So I've been experimenting with sugar free and wheat free healthy treats - and this one is a winner!

It's a winner because it's easy, quick, delicious and both sugar and wheat free! You can watch this space for a lot more fudge too - because now that I have this basic recipe I'm going to be experimenting with a lot of different flavours! I'm thinking my next may be chocolate and pecan, or maybe chocolate peanut butter swirl, or maybe lime and coconut. Haha, I can't decide - what should I make? :)

This fudge is not super sweet - which is how I like it. But if you like your fudge sweet then you can add some sweetener to it, such as stevia or agave nectar. But try the original first, as all the people I gave it to commented that they liked the fact that it wasn't as sweet and sickly as regular fudge.

Finally, this post is part of the Sweet Adventures Blog Hop's "Berry Nice To Meet You" Hop, so click on all the thumbnails below the post to check out everyone else's inspiring berry desserts. Plus a thank you to the fabulous Christina at The Hungry Australian for hosting.

Ingredients

2 cups dessicated coconut, unsweetened

1 ripe banana (the more ripe the better), chopped

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 pinch cinnamon

3/4 cup whole fresh or frozen raspberries

To Make

1. Put the coconut in a food processor and churn to make coconut butter. The length will depend on your food processor. If you have a regular food processor it should take about 10-12 minutes. If you have one of those super fancy new-fangled type ones then I think it will take about 5 minutes (I only have a standard food processor - so mine took about 12 minutes). In any case just keep an eye on it, scrape down the sides regularly and then stop it when you have a mixture about the consistency of peanut butter. Note: if you do it for a bit longer it will turn runny - this is fine too, as it will set later the same consistency).

2. Add the vanilla, cinnamon and chopped banana and process again until it makes a thick but smooth paste.

3. Remove the blade and stir through the raspberries with a spoon - gently, so that they stay as whole as possible.

4. Take a smallish square container (plastic is fine - I hypothesise that silicone would be great as it will be easier to get the fudge out of) and spoon the fudge into it. Press it down with the back of a spoon as if it were a slice and smooth it over on the top.

5 Put in the freezer for 10 minutes.

6. Remove, slice and eat. 

A perfect after dinner snack!