>Healthy AND Delicious Pops For Everyone!!

Here at My Little Cupcake we get a lot of requests for allergy-safe pops!Would you believe these delectable looking pops are not only a very healthy snack but are also vegan, gluten free AND if you leave off the super healthy organic dipping chocolate,they are also completely RAW!!

My right hand man… I mean woman here at My Little Cupcake, Angela, happens to follow a strict RAW food diet. So even though she works here with me she has never actually tasted one of our Yummilicious Pops?!?! She does however, love cookies and her favorite recipe is from raw food chef Ani Phyo.I had to do something about this situation so I invited Angela over so we could make these healthy pops together! We wanted to test out this recipe and see if we could make it work with our mold???And it sure did…

We based our recipe on Ani Phyo’s Raw Oatmeal Cookie Recipe page 113 in her book, Ani’s Raw Food Desserts. We made a few changes to make it work a little easier for working in the Mini-Mold™.
The original recipe ingredients are very simple;
1 Cup Oats
1/2 cup Madjool Dates
1/2 cup Raisins
Pinch of Cinnamon.
It doesn’t get much easier than that…There aren’t really set amounts on the oats as you just keep mixing in more oats until you have the texture you are looking for.Add more or less dates for moisture, and raisins and cinnamon to taste…The recipe made 12 Pops.Using those 4 ingredients only, the cookies are 100% raw, vegan and gluten-free. We have included some optional ingredients such as cacao nibs (also raw) for crunch or dusting, shredded coconut (optional raw) and non-raw but organic vegan/gluten-free chocolate for dipping.Even with the addition of these “indulgent” ingredients the pops remain vegan and gluten free.

The cookies were so easy to make and no tools were required!The madjool dates were simply pitted and torn into smaller bits by hand right into the mixing bowl.

What a beautiful bowl of healthy ingredients…We used whole oats in order to stick with our theme of easy and not get out any gadgets for these cookies but in the future I would suggest popping them into the food processor first in order to produce a better shape and cleaner ridges from the cupcake mold. (You could also add optional cacao nibs to the mix for crunch here as well.)

Mix the ingredients with your hands until everything has mixed thoroughly. It combines quickly and there is no refrigeration of the dough between this and the next step.Then simply press the dough into the cupcake mold and squeeze it together.

The dates bind everything together perfectly and the smell from this bowl of fresh ingredients was absolutely wonderful…The only gadget we did use was to grind up some extra oats to coat the mold and our hands to help with sticking issues (as the dates can get a little sticky). It worked great for us!It’s hard to see in this picture but the cupcake form came out just right!We couldn’t believe how easily this very hearty dough worked with our My Little Cupcake CakePop Mini-Mold™.Actually, we could believe it…Our pops are a piece of cake, after all!You can see the light dusting of ground oats that we used to prevent sticking. You could also ground the optional cacao nibs into a powder and use that to help prevent any sticking and to also add a light chocolate taste. This organic, vegan and gluten-free chocolate melted in no time at all outside in the sunshine.(We were again sticking with the no gadgets or cooking needed for these pops!)Angela is working on her dipping skills here. Did I mention she does not know how to cook either? She is a trooper though, and therefore raw food is a fitting lifestyle for her and thankfully,so are these super easy and healthy pops.We went with such a dark, tasty and healthy chocolate in order to use less of it and keep the pops healthy. (This chocolate is not raw, but is organic, vegan and gluten free which is right inline with our goal of making allergy-safe pops!)

These pops actually hold together so nicely there is no need to refrigerate between dipping the bottoms and decorating the tops.I have to be honest-the pops don’t even need chocolate they are so tasty on their own.But since we like to decorate here at My Little Cupcake and jazz things up, we simply drizzled the sun-melted chocolate on the tops of the pops for a swirled look. Angela couldn’t drizzle so I took over…we’ll work on it!A few light shakes of coconut dust and these healthy pops were ready to eat!We used organic shredded coconut but you could also buy or make your own raw coconut shreds as well. You could also decorate with some raisins on top.It turns out Angela couldn’t dip or drizzle, but she could shake the coconut on perfectly.We’ll keep her☺The pops are ready to serve but you could also put them in the fridge and they will firm up a bit and be perfect to travel in the car and arrive at just the right temperature for serving. Because of the dates I would recommend refrigerating if you do not intend to eat them within a couple of hours.These healthy pops were so amazing that I put some together to bring to the gym with me in the morning…yes you heard me right…cakepops to the GYM!!However, they didn’t last long enough to make the trip but I did make sure to tell everyone about them.No one could believe that it was possible to make something so beautiful and delicious from only a handful of easy ingredients…But here at My Little Cupcake… our recipes have to pass the roughest bunch of taste testers.

Well, as you can see these healthy pops had them all really surprised…enjoying every bite and wanting more…including the dog… AMAZING!They all had seconds and even asked us to make another batch of these healthy, vegan, gluten-free pops!

We are so thrilled when we can add yet another recipe for our mold that not only tastes great, but is healthy and safe for lots of kids with allergies.We know a lot of those kids always bring their own desserts to birthday parties, etc.,where the food is not safe and we just LOVE passing this recipe on so they can make and decorate allergy safe and healthy pops for themselves! 

A Big Thank You to Ani Phyo. Thanks for the original recipe and letting us post it on our blog to share with all our readers. This is a wonderful book by the way and has lots more amazing recipes in it!And of course a Big Thank You to Angela for sharing your idea with me and coming over and spending the afternoon with me playing in the kitchen. We had so much fun.Now you can finally say you have had one of our Cupcake Pops!Here’s to healthy eating for everyone!