Guest Blog Post with Lauren: Confessions of a converted non-baker

                                                                                                                                                                                 

I am very excited to bring you a guest post from a fellow yoga instructor, world traveler, and long time friend.  I met Lauren during my yoga teacher training at Yandara Yoga Institute in the Fall of 2007.  We were both there with one goal, to get certified as yoga instructors.  Since then we have been able to keep in contact over Facebook.  Recently Lauren started posting pictures of recipes she made from my blog on my Facebook page.  I was impressed with her results and felt she would bring an interesting perspective to my readers.  She is not a vegan or raw foodie but just someone who appreciates a healthy, simple, and delicious raw dessert.  Below she shares her experiences with non baking!

Confessions of a converted non-baker:

I hate baking.  It has too many rules.  It requires math. Things have to be done in a specific order.  Honestly, I’m too much of a flake to bake.  When I see the words “in a spring-form pan…” on a recipe card my immediate gut reaction is spring for the door. I’ve made beautiful pies in the past, gorgeous looking cupcakes, but somewhere in the process I decide I do not need measurements anymore and throw the recipe out the window in order to freestyle it in my kitchen.  What results is aesthetically stunning deserts that taste awful.  

I had seen pictures of raw treats that looked edible.  This intrigued me.  Most of them weren’t even green! I just assumed though that raw food would be an even more intricate process than baked- I mean its raw and its square- how is that even possible?! I stayed away.   Then two-weeks ago when my mother asked me to look after her house while she was on vacation, I found myself trying to postpone working without any of my usual toys. Going through facebook I saw my friend April’s page and meandered my way toward her blog.  I had romantically fantasized about her raw deserts in the past, but always quickly snapped out of it, deciding that any baked goods that didn’t involve baking and were completely devoid of butter and refined sugar probably wouldn’t taste much better than what I was already making.   Well, that day, in my mom’s kitchen I decided I would engage in the ultimate procrastination- go grocery shopping for food I had no clue where to find, use kitchen power tools I had never plugged in, and attempt something raw.  It just seemed like a good idea.  Here I was in a kitchen Martha Stewart could be envious of, with varying degrees of food processor, pie plates in several sizes and enough counter space for me to have a slumber party on.  I figured it would be a good waste of a day.

I decided to try April’s Apple Crumble pie first, because I knew of a reliable place to buy apples. I headed to the fruit store. To my extreme surprise, my local (seriously local, just one block away) fruiterie had EVERY SINGLE ITEM on the list! Pre-pitted dates (I had no clue such a thing existed), nuts…well you can read the recipe… I came home and followed the instructions.  Again, not wanting to conform too much, I substituted Agave nectar for a mix of honey and maple syrup- I am Canadian after all. The apple marinade was surprisingly delicious. Surely the crumb part would be my breaking point. I threw the nuts and dates in a food processor along with vanilla and cinnamon. I pressed the button, jumped at the noise, pressed it again, holding this time and ABBRA KEDABRA, I had made vegan crumb.  Shocking, I poured everything into a bowl.  It looked amazing.  It tasted sweet, tart and just like pie.  I’m probably hallucinating I thought. I called my sister over to try it out.  She did.  She liked it too!

Well, this little crumb pie gave me so much confidence in my skills as a vegan master patissiere, that I decided to take a plunge- raw vegan cheesecake.  Certainly this one would taste funny- cheesecake without CHEESE!? Absurd.  Back to the local fruit store I went, secretly hoping that they would be devoid of the itemized list that was foreign to me.  When they did not have unsweetened coconut, I could just leave defeated with a well I tried attitude and forget the whole thing ever happened.  Again, I was wrong.  They did have coconut flakes, and coconut meat, and coconut oil. Fate.  I came home and once again skeptically followed the recipe (without actually measuring anything out, just eyeballing it).  It was so simple.  I took out a blender and made a freaking cheesecake! I set in in the fridge overnight and had it for breaky the next morning and you know what? It was delicious! I’m hooked.  Raw vegan deserts are fun, easy and pretty guilt free, unless you’re me and you eat ¾ of an apple pie in one sitting and a whole cheesecake the next day.

So there it is: my raw admission of a kitchen klutz’s experience with vegan deserts. Go forth foodies and non-bake!

Lauren Rudick RYT 500 is an international yoga instructor, based out of Montreal, Canada. She specializes in teaching yoga to athletes and injury prevention/recovery. Her classes are infused with humor and positivity, helping students build confidence on and off the mat. When not teaching she dabbles in clothing and jewelry design. Lauren’s joys in life include her dog Julius, bare feet, snowboarding, delicious food, beaches, climbing trees and spontaneous world travel.
Find Lauren on 
facebook: facebook.com/laurenrudickyoga 
Twitter: @avignayoga
URL: www.avignayoga.com