Vegan Cashew Cream Dessert Topping

This was really delicious! It is not the consistency of true whipped cream - what is, in allergyland - but the flavor was terrific and it tasted delicious on this Gluten Free Goddess' Pumpkin Pie recipe. I love that you can make this pie in a food processor. Talk about easy. I only made one change - we can't do brown sugar, so I used coconut palm sugar. Yum! I'd post the pie recipe, but I don't yet know the rules governing copyright infringements. I know some people are okay with reprinting with credits and links back, but many ask you to request permission. Which I have, but I haven't gotten it yet.

I found this at the Savvy Vegetarian, my new favorite site - well, next to the Gluten Free Goddess. I'm not a vegetarian, but so many veggie and vegan recipes are friendly to our new cuisine.

The original recipe can be found here. The only disclaimer I will make is the need for a high-quality blender. I recently acquired a Vitamix, which had little trouble mixing this up. A stick blender is also recommended, though I didn't try it with that. I wouldn't try doubling this recipe without a Vitamix or other work horse blender.

Vegan Cashew Cream topping

• 1 C raw cashews
• 2 C sugar-free apple juice
• 2 T coconut oil, melted
• 1/4 C beet sugar or to taste
• 1 t vanilla extract

1. Combine cashews and juice in a saucepan and bring to a boil. 
2. Reduce heat and simmer ten minutes, or until cashews have softened. 
3. Cover. Let cool several hours or overnight in the fridge.
4. Drain cashews, reserving the liquid.
5. Combine cashews, oil, vanilla, and about 1/4 C reserved juice in container of your Vitamix. Turn on to variable speed at 1 and work your way up to 10, then high speed. Add more liquid if needed, but use as little liquid as possible. The cream should be thick. I'm still learning my Vitamix. It tends to get air pockets when blending something with so low a liquid content. I have to use the plunger (or whatever that thing is called) to poke out the air pockets or stop the thing altogether to scrap the container. Or both. The engine is so powerful it scares the crap out of me sometimes.
6. Add sugar gradually until well blended.
7. Refrigerate cream until dessert time.

Again, yum. Using apple juice makes all the difference. I've made cashew cream just soaking cashews overnight in water and it came out fine, but not dessert fine. I have a sweet tooth and this fits the bill nicely. I want to make this every week. But, alas, I don't want to weigh twice as much as I do now, so I restrain myself.

The original recipe called for powdered sugar, which is hard to come by when you're sugar-free. I understand I can make powdered sugar using a Vitamix, so I will be testing that theory out soon. Especially since Christmas is right around the corner.