Sweet Sauces, Jams & Powders
From caramel to chocolate powder or berry jams. Quick, easy, and actually healthy with no added sugars oils or salts.
Berry Jam / 🫗Fruit Syrup (compôte)
1 cup of fruit
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp red wine vinegar (or any fruit vinegar)
¼ cup of water (add more as needed depending on the fruit)
(½ tsp apple cider vinegar, OPTIONAL)
Optional Spiced Jams
Apple Pie Jam add a pinch of ground: allspice, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, ½ tsp vanilla, and orange zest. Use granny smith and pink lady for sweetness.
Cranberry Jam add a pinch of ground: cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. The fruit I used above works well (cranberries, cherries, and blueberries).
Keylime Pie Jam: substitue lemon with 4 tbsp keylime (2 tbsp regular lime), 1 tbsp lime zest (or more), use white/green grapes for the primary fruit.
Maple Pseudo Syrup use mostly dry pitted dates, and/or white grapes, for the fruit. Grind ¼ cup of pecans into a flour and cook all with ¼ tsp vanilla and ⅛ tsp nutmeg, omit the red wine.
Pumkin Spice Jam add a pinch of ground: cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger.
Red Velvet Jam: add 1 tsp cocoa powder and 1 tsp nutritional yeast. When all the liquid is reduced add ½ cup of heavy oat milk. I like to use cherries or strawberries.
Winter Spice Jam add a pinch of ground: allspice, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, ½ tsp vanilla, and orange zest.
Directions
Grind up your chia seeds.
Add all of your jam/compôte ingredients to a small pot and cook on medium-low heat. When the fruit starts to soften start mashing the fruit with a fork (or ideally a food mill or potato masher).
When it coats and sticks to the back of a spoon (the last frame in the above picture) then it’s ready. Let the jam cool to room temperature before putting it in the refrigerator.
Caramel Sauce
Ingredients
½ cup pitted dates
1 tbsp lemon juice
¼ tbsp vanilla
1 cup water (add more as needed until dates break down)
1 cup heavy oat milk
3 tbsp oat flour (get by blending oats in your spice grinder)
1 cup water
Add both to a jar and shake vigorously for 15 seconds until it forms an oat milk.
Directions
Chop dates as fine as you can (mince) then add all except for the oat milk and cook on medium-high heat while constantly breaking down dates with the back of a fork (or food mill/masher) until the sauce is quite thick and has very little, if any, date chunks that haven’t broken down (add water as needed if still not soft).
Add your oat milk while stirring to incorporate it fully. Now put it on low heat and don’t stir it until it stops bubbeling.
When a thick film covers the entire surface and the bubbles stop, turn off the heat and let it stand for 5-10 minutes.
Your caramel should be thick and drippy.
Chocolate Powder
Ingredients
½ cup pitted dates
½ cup cocoa powder
Directions
Coat dates, inside and out, in cocoa powder.
Now add half of the cocoa powder to the bottom of your spice grinder.
Put coated dates in grinder and cover with the remaining cocoa powder.
Blend until desired texture. I like it when it looks like soil because it keeps the grinder clean and allows you to do interesting things with it.
Chocolate Sauce
Ingredients
½ cup chocolate powder
1 cup water
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
Directions
In a small pot on low heat, slowly add liquids and incorporate them with the chocolate powder— that you made from the above recipe.
