Purely Classic Recipes

I’ve been drooling over Lori and Michelle’s recipes since I first heard about them through Gina’s blog a number of years ago.  While I don’t eat a totally raw diet, I really enjoy making raw desserts and snacks and everything I saw them make looked so good!  So a few weeks ago when I given the opportunity to review their new e-book “Purely Classic Recipes” I jumped at the chance!

Disclosure:  I was provided a copy of Purely Classic Recipes free of charge in exchange for my honest review of the cookbook.  All thought, opinions and experiences are 100% my own. 

The first two things I noticed about the cookbook were 1) all of the photos and 2) all of the tips and variations they provide.

Every recipe has multiple photos which something I think all cookbooks should have (I hate cookbooks that only give you a photo once ever 4 or 5 recipes!) and the photos used are big and beautiful (the only thing worse than no photo is a tiny photo 😉 ).

As far as the tips goes, the book is broken down into two sections, baked and raw.  At the beginning of the baked section the twins go over all of their favourite ingredients for gluten, dairy, egg and soy free baking and they explain why they use them.  Then at the end of each recipe they also include tips and substitutions that they have tried to help you get the best results every time.

I really appreciated this because there were times I didn’t have the exact ingredients on hand, but then when looking at the substitutions I found that I could usually substitute what was called for in the recipe with an ingredient I had.

So far, I’ve had the chance to try three of the recipes from the cookbook:

Key Lime Avocado Pudding

I’ve made avocado puddings before, and have always been a bit disappointed with them.  I find most recipes try to hide the fact that there is avocado in the pudding, and that is where they fail in my book.  In this recipe, you know you’re eating avocado but it really does taste like Key Lime pudding.  I made it for dessert on St. Patricks day and it was the perfect green dessert! 🙂

Chocolate Cream Cake

Holy moly.  This cake is awesome.  One of my friends described it as tasting like a raw macaroon married a truffle and I think that is the most accurate description I have heard.  Honestly, the cost of the cookbook is worth it for this recipe alone.  For real.  I can see it quickly becoming a go-to dessert for pot-lucks or dinner parties.

Basic Baked Donut

This is the only baked recipe I’ve tried so far, and was my first attempt at making homemade baked donuts.  The only problem I had was my donut pan is a mini donut pain and I over filled it so I only had holes on one side. :/  However, that didn’t alter the taste, and I may have eaten 1/2 of the batch in one afternoon.  I probably would have eaten the other half too if I wasn’t being nice and saving them for J.  I gave one to my mom who said it was the best baked dessert/sweet she’s eaten in a long time.  they are certainly lighter than your typical donut, but that’s not a bad thing!  My advice is to make sure you’ve got a full-sized donut pan if you’re making these as there were some comments made in my house about how they weren’t “real” donuts because their hole was missing

Personally, I really wasn’t bothered. 😉

Next up on my list of things to try from the cookbook is their individual carrot cakes with cashew frosting.  They sound (and look) so yummy!

If you would like to pick up a copy of Purely Classic Recipes you can do so on their website.