As a huge Hognuts Butter fan, it was an absolute pleasure to meet the wonderful brains behind the handmade nut butter brand at my favourite health food shop, Win Naturally, the other week. Many may know that I’m a huge nut butter fan, but what makes this brand special and stand out is its artisan nature; each batch is made with raw nuts and only a few other ingredients to make them as tasty and healthy as possible. It was fantastic to sample a range of their flavours when they visited Manchester, including Coconut & Cashew, High Protein Chocolate Salted Caramel Peanut Butter and Caramel Amaretto Macchiato Cashew & Peanut Butter – YUM!
With Christmas approaching, I was absolutely delighted to receive a special delivery from the Hognuts team in the post – a huge tub of their Christmas Pudding nut butter! Including traditional festive flavours like roasted peanuts, brazil nuts, almonds, raisins, cherries, cinnamon, nutmeg and rum, it sounds like heaven…and trust me, it tastes like it! There’s no artificial aftertaste unlike some other nut butters on the market, plus it tastes fresh, flavoursome, rich and indulgent but without being too sickly.
When I first got it, a teaspoon of this pot of deliciousness simply served with raw apple and celery sticks was a taste sensation, there are so many other ways I can think of using it this Christmas!
Christmas Pudding Protein Tartlets
On that note, here’s a recipe which marries together a gluten-free almond ‘pastry’ base packed with fruits and Hognuts incredible seasonal nut butter, together with a cashew cream on top to provide a fantastic festive treat – with clean ingredients, you wouldn’t know these were actually good for you, packed full of protein and healthy fats!
Ingredients:
Almond tartlet cases:
- ½ cup ground almonds
- ½ cup coconut flour
- ½ cup vanilla whey protein powder (I used PhD Nutrition)
- 1 egg white
- ¼ cup coconut oil, melted
- 1 tsp almond extract
- Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C. Grease 4-6 muffin tins well with coconut oil.
- Put the dry ingredients into a bowl. Whisk the egg white, coconut oil and almond extract then pour in, mixing well until it comes together to form a dough – not too sticky or too dry.
- Divide the dough into 4 or 6 depending how big your muffin tins are then press into each one, covering the base and sides so you have tartlet cases. Bake for about 10 minutes until golden and cooked. Remove from oven, leave to cool.
Fruity nut filling:
- A mixture of prunes, cranberries, raisins, dried apricots, dates – whatever dried fruit you want, about 50-75g in total
- Rind of ½ orange
- 2 tbsp Hognuts Christmas Pudding nut butter
- ¼ tsp each of cinnamon and ginger
- Put your dried fruit in a small pan with a dash of water , orange rindand the spices. Simmer for about 5 minutes until the fruit is slightly softened, then leave to cool.
- When cooled, put the fruit mixture and Hognuts butter in a blender and roughly blitz until you have a chunky but quite smooth texture.
- Spoon some of this mixture into your cooled-down tartlet cases to the top.
Cashew cream topping:
- 25-50g cashew nuts, soaked in water for about 2 hours
- 1 tbsp Sweet Freedom or agave syrup
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- Pinch of nutmeg
- Drain your soaked cashews and put them in a blender with the other ingredients. Blend well until you have a thick ‘cream’
- Dab a spoonful of this mixture on top of the dried fruit, decorate with a cranberry and now you’re ready to serve!
You can buy Hognuts Christmas Pudding nut butter, along with many other flavours, from Protein Pick’n’Mix. If you give these a go, please tag both myself and Hognuts on Twitter @SpamellaB / @HognutsButters and Instagram @SpamellaB / @HognutsButters!