Healthy Vegan “Caramel” Apple Dip

Hey everyone! Welcome to February.  February is without a doubt one of my favorite months (other than October).  My birthday is mid month, and there’s just something about the short month that I love.  The days are getting longer, in a normal year we would have snow on the ground, and everything just seems cheerier than in January.  Except for Valentines day, Valentines day is just an attention whore.

Anyways I’m really excited about some of the posts I have in the draft folder, and more importantly I’m feeling more inspired for this blog than I have in a long time.  I just ordered a slightly used Pentax K-7 which is a huge upgrade from my Pentax *ist DL.  I hope you enjoy the upcoming posts as much as I do.  And on to today’s  post.

Apples come to my house to die.

They really do.  Between my hubby’s 4 apples for lunch a day and sliced apples being a favorite snack of mine, I have to buy bags and bags of apples every week.

The teenager checking out my weekly haul at the grocery store commented how “you sure like your veggies… and apples”.

Yes, we love apples.  I line them up on plates in military formations and play games with them.  I’ll be thirty mid-month, is that normal?

Hubby eats them whole but I’ve always preferred sliced apples.  One of my front teeth met it’s doom on a Toronto driveway when I was 8 or 9.  I’ve always been a little nervous about the crown that replaced it.

To keep sliced apples exciting, I love to dip them in things.  Almond butter is a favorite or vanilla yogurt then oats.  But a naughty pleasure are the caramel apple dips available at the grocery store.

The caramel apple dips are so bad for you.  They are full of sugar and they market them with a big fat free sign.  Despite being sold alongside the healthy apples, they are not healthy.  And they are addictive.  You start to crave the sugary mess when you are eating an already sweet apple.

So I set out to find a solution.  I found a couple videos on the internet but got bored after listening to the ingredients list.  So this is actually my creation.  I apologize if it seems like anyone elses.

So this caramel dip is 100% natural sugars, vegan and could probably be made raw if you used raw agave.  It’s not exactly like the grocery store dip, but it taste good.  Especially on a tart apple like a granny smith.

I’ve heard of people describing healthy caramel dips as a paste, and while this one isn’t gooey like the sugar caramel dip, it had a certain fluidity to it.

At the same time, it should be eaten shortly after being made.  It tends to separate rather easily.

This is probably my favorite picture of the recipe.  It shows the texture of the dip and a little of the remaining date flesh that I couldn’t process fully.  I strongly believe that the key to this dip is using soaked dates.

It’s healthy, it’s sweet and it’s salted?  Yes you can turn it into a salted caramel apple dip too.  Heavenly really.  I don’t know who came up with the combo in the first place but it’s brilliant. 

I’m submitting this post to Diet, Dessert and Dogs’ Wellness weekend.  It’s a recipe linkup for healthy, vegan foods.  No artificial sugars or highly processed items allowed.  Why vegan? Because it’s the lowest common denominator.  Omnivores can love vegan food, vegans can’t eat omnivore food. Check it out.

Have you ever come up with a healthier version of your favorite junk food?

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