Look closely…
What do you see in this photo?
Do you see…
A. unicorns and rainbows?
B. flying puppies?
C. Brownies iced in thick fudgey frosting, without ANY butter or sugar?
Hopefully you see the third choice: a decadent coffee fudge frosting recipe that is made without powdered sugar and without butter or shortening. Yet it is super rich and creamy—the perfect topping for any cake or brownies!
Above: used as frosting for my Black Bean Brownies.
Side note: If you chose answers A or B (the unicorns or puppies), it might be a good idea to talk to a psychologist about this. Or maybe an eye doctor…
You won’t miss the butter.
Promise.
Coffee Fudge Frosting
- 1 cup raw cashews or macadamia nuts (110g)
- 1/4 cup + 3 tbsp espresso or strong coffee
- very scant 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2 tsp pure maple syrup
- 1/8 tsp uncut stevia OR 4 tbsp powdered sugar (or simply increase the maple syrup to 4 tbsp, and decrease coffee to 1/4 cup)
Place the nuts in a cereal-sized bowl and cover with water. Let sit at least 6 hours, or overnight. Drain the liquid, then combine all ingredients in a small food processor or blender until super-smooth. (I actually used my Magic Bullet for this. If your food processor is too big, you might need to double the recipe for smoother blending.) For all substitution notes, see the nutrition link below:
Do you wear glasses at all?
When I was little, I wanted to wear glasses so badly. My optician uncle sent us pairs of fake glasses, and my sister and I actually wore them to school for a few months. Now that I do sometimes wear glasses, for far distances and driving, I wish I didn’t need them. It’s especially difficult to remember to bring them shopping, and I’m constantly losing them!
Link of the Day:
Coconut Ice Cream – 5 New Recipes
I do have to wear glasses (since 2008; four years after a ball hit me between the eyes and making my vision go downhill really fast), but I’m so active that I wear contacts. If I didn’t wear any thing for my eyes, I would be really blind. I can hardly see anything a yard away! :b
I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE frosting!!!!! Best part of cake ev-er! But I love brownies so much! I’m the brownie queen of the family, so thank you for both of these recipes!!!! 😀
(glasses)
I am 21 and just started needing glasses for distance and driving too. I need to get glasses asap or let my boyfriend or sister drive me around after dark.
Oh my gosh! I’m so excited to make this. I have been looking for a frosting that doesn’t need butter or shortening or powdered sugar, and no website seems to have the legitimate healthy frosting I’m looking for. Well, now I found it. Thanks so much! 🙂
P.S. If I answer “all of the above”, will I still need to see a psychologist?? ;P
~ Natalyn
Dear Katie (or anyone else who has an answer for me),
In stead of stevia packets, I have a little pot of stevia, with one of those tiny scoops.
Do you (or does anybody else) know how many scoops/teaspoons of stevia there are in one packet?
Thank you so much!
Depends on whether you have pure stevia or not. It varies from brand to brand… Nunaturals 1 packet is about 2-3 tsp sugar in terms of sweetness.
I have the one you can buy in trader joe’s, is that one about the same? Thank you so much! 🙂
Such a good idea! Thanks!
I have worn glasses/contacts since I was 5. It’s not so bad when you always need to…it’s not like I can forget that my vision is that shitty!– but I bet it would suck to have to remember only sometimes.
Would substituting the coffee for cocoa powder work to make a chocolate frosting?
I do wear glasses, on the occasion that I remember them. I remember being little and wanting glasses so badly, but everybody kept saying I’d change my mind, and I was sure I wouldn’t. I finally got my glasses (My right eye was 20/400 and my eye doctor kept saying: “Meh, you could get glasses if you wanted to I suppose, but you don’t really need to…” Then he said the same thing at a repeat visit a year or two later when it was 20/1500..) and wore them a lot the first day or two, but they hurt my ears, so I started only wearing them for school, then not even that. Then I got new glasses that I liked the look of better, so I wore them a little more often, but I kept forgetting them. Then just a couple months ago our car got broken into, and my mom’s purse stolen, and my glasses were in her purse. SO, it’s probably time to go back to the optometrist. What with being almost blind in my right eye. I can only see because my left eye is near perfect. I am a little bit farsighted in the left eye though, but incredibly nearsighted in my right. I can never see the big “E” on the chart.
I don’t know, as you’d still need liquid for the coffee part. Or maybe not… You’ll have to play around with it!
What a wonderful idea! I love using blended soaked cashews in recipes. Since it is so versatile, it would be awesome to make this simple cashew creme in bulk and stick what I don’t use in the fridge for another recipe. Have any idea how long it would stay good for?
I don’t 🙁
Looks gorgeous, I will definitely be trying this! Do the cashews have to be raw, or roasted? I know there are some recipes where it can really alter the taste of the finished product.
I’ve only tried it with raw.
Thanks CCK ^^ I’ll definitely be soaking some cashews for frosting-based deliciousness.
Tried the recipe this morning – SO GOOD. Unsurprisingly 😉 Thanks CCK! I made a version of your chocolate chip blondies with hazelnut butter, then topped with this frosting. Kind of like a cappuccino dessert!
I’ve worn glasses since I was in preschool. Almost everybody in my family wears or has worn glasses at some point. I was just the lucky one whose eyes were super messed up 🙂
This frosting looks awesome! Frostings never come out very well for me, but I’ll have to try again with this one.
Do you know of any substitutions for the coffee?
It looks so delicious! I am definitely going to make this in the weekend! And I absolutely love coffee and chocolate, so this is like heaven 🙂
Um, I totally see rainbows and puppies. But I see those things anytime I’m looking at something delicious.
Hopefully you don’t want to eat the puppies, though ;).
I see a heart made from frosting. Yummy!
I have glasses. Since I wear them constantly, losing them is as likely as me losing a hand. My main thign is that I”m very fussy about their cleanliness and wipe them frequently.
umm brownies and coffee! this sounds yummyyyyy! thank you for sharing!
Haha!!! I am the exact same! I used to wear fake glasses and now I am stuck with real ones!!! This looks great-I can’t wait to try it! I just made your no-bake peanut butter pie and give it 5 stars! It was amazing.