This gooey, gorgeous fudge is such a great treat for kids and adults!
We’ve called this date fudge because of that wonderful squidgy texture and deep creamy, sweet flavor but another good description for it would might be halva fudge - the Tahini in it gives it a smooth, creamy, nutty, seasame taste that you would associate with halva.
As it's very sweet - and before I explain how you can make it - I just wanted to take moment to talk about a recipe like this that is 'sugar free / no added sugar' and how I would see a treat like this fitting into a healthy diet.
It's all about the fructose
Any store bought fudge would have sugar as one of it's main ingredients - you'll see that there is no sugar at all in my recipe. However, the sweetness is provided by the dates, which of course do contain sugar. Almost all types of sugar are roughly 50% glucose and 50% fructose, and it's the fructose that can start causing health issues.
Whereas glucose can be processed by any cell in the human body, fructose has to rely solely on the liver to process it, and when it gets consumed in large quantities it ends up becoming stored as fat, as well as creating health issues like fatty liver disease. I've written more about how fructose affects you in my blog posts Does Sugar Make You Fat? and Are You Addicted To Sugar?
Dates contain far less fructose than most other types of sugars, with around 30% fructose, and also contain plenty of health benefits like being high in fibre, rich in essential minerals including iron, potassium, magnesium and zinc and containing vitamins such as niacin, thiamin, vitamins K & A.
Unlike added sugar that is just empty calories with no nutritionl benefit, dates are good for us and eaten in moderation, have numerous heath properties.
Time for a detox?
I think it’s important to remind you that if you’re addicted to sugar or think you might be, even though this recipe is still free from added sugar, you might want to think about doing a sugar detox to reset your taste buds and get back in control of your food choices.
Fast forward to how you’ll be feeling after your 21 day sugar detox when you’re reaping all the benefits and completely free of the gnarly effects of sugar addiction and fully back in control of your eating habits. That’s when it’s safe to have the odd treat, and I say odd treat because when you break the cycle of sugar addiction through the detox, the cravings for sweet treats really does diminish.
It’s incredible how much your taste buds change and the first time you eat something sweet after the detox will feel intensely sweet and sickly. It makes you realize very quickly how masked your tastebuds were and even more worryingly how excessively you would have been consuming sugar without getting that sickly full feeling. The detox completely resets this and minimizes cravings.
Make your own desserts
However, there will be times when you fancy something a bit naughty and that’s why I’ve included dessert options. Every dessert I have on this site has nutritional health benefits while satiating the odd sweet craving. And this fudge is a much healthier, no added-sugar version of an otherwise sugar-laden and ridiculously sweet, unhealthy treat.
When you’ve got a family and children, having healthy alternative healthy verisons of desserts is a super handy tool. The minute you tell someone they can't have something, it’s a sure fire way to make them crave it more. That’s a human design and all the will in the world wont change that.
What you can do and have complete control over is the sugar treats you opt for. If you feed your family a diet high in sugar, that’s what they’ll crave. If you can introduce healthier alternatives with real foods that contain nutrients, minerals and vitamins and at the same time give a sweet fix you’re training the tastebuds to enjoy healthier verisions of sweet treats.
If you only eat treats with naturally occurring sugar, then foods with added sugars, fructose glucose syrups and false sweeteners will taste extremely sweet and fake.
It's soooo easy!
What I love about this fudge recipe is how unbelievably simple it is to make. It literally takes minutes to concoct, there’s no baking or heating required. All you need to do is whack it in a mixer and blend then pop in in the freezer to finish off.
INGREDIENTS:
350g Pitted Dates
120g Tahini
120ml Double Cream
1 Pinch if salt
a couple of drops of vanilla essence
METHOD:
Throw it all into your food processor and blend the lot until you get a nice smooth texture.
Line a shallow baking tray with greaseproof/baking paper and pour in the mix.
Spread it out with a spatula and freeze for 2 hours.
Remove from the freezer and cut into bite sized chunks!
If you would like to quit sugar for good and regain control of your food choices, you can transform your life with my 21 Day Sugar Detox Program.
