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Perfect in the summer time but amazing all year round, this decadent love bowl with crème fraîche and sour cherries is all you need for a delicious afternoon. You can’t go easier than this simple and healthy raw dessert that tastes amazing (so my wife says).
This crème fraîche dessert is so delicious that you know it just by looking at the pictures. It’s:
Easy & 100% Raw
Refreshing
Nutritious
Sugar-Free
Decadent
Creamy
Sweet and Sour
Satisfying
Pure Love
& Super Healthy
What goes into Crème Fraîche Love Bowl
This crème fraîche dessert-bowl is all about keeping things simple, delicious and healthy. You’ll need only 3 basic ingredients to make it and 1 minute of your time:
Crème Fraîche – This special kind pf sour cream is rich in healthy fats, quality proteins and probiotics. Crème fraîche is a traditionally fermented cream that comes from the French culinary tradition, specifically the region of Normandie. Due to the fermentation process, crème fraîche tastes a bit sour and it’s very similar to the “smetana” found in Russia and “smântâna” found in Romania and Moldova. You will love it!
Frozen Sour Cherries – Like all fruit, sour cherries are loaded with healthy nutrients, specifically vitamins and minerals, phytonutrients, enzymes and gut-friendly fiber. Their specific sour-ish taste will balance perfectly the taste of crème fraîche from our recipe. Using frozen sour cherries will give this dessert a special consistency, very similar to melted ice-cream.
Dark Chocolate – Use the best chocolate you can find and this means chocolate prepared from cacao ingredients only: cacao mass, cacao butter, natural sweetener, and optionally vanilla powder. My advice is to use dark chocolate, the darker the better.
I tend to use as much chocolate as I feel like in the moment and I never regret it. Dark chocolate is super delicious, plus it’s a fermented food and you know what this means: it’s also healthy and “good-for-you”. Stay away from chocolate that contains added milk, soy, sugar, fillers of any kind, or additives and preservatives. Chocolate should be made from cacao-based ingredients only, as I explained above.
Do you love chocolate? Read my guide to quality homemade chocolate or check-out these 11 amazing chocolate recipes.
Steps to prepare this amazingly delicious bowl
- First thing is to make sure that both the crème fraîche and sour cherries are cold. Crème fraîche must be stored in the fridge, while the sour cherries must ideally come from the freezer.
- Add crème fraîche to a big enough bowl.
- Add almost all of the sour cherries to the bowl, but keep a few tablespoons for decoration.
- Use a spoon to mix the two, until well-combined (mix for 10-20 seconds).
- Last step is to decorate this dessert with chocolate pieces and the rest of the sour cherries.
- DONE! Told you it was easy!
Crème Fraîche or Crème Crue?
For this dessert we are using crème fraîche (fresh cream), but we can certianly use crème crue (raw cream) just as welll. What is the difference between crème fraîche and crème crue, you ask?
Both crème fraîche and crème crue are obtained after separating the cream from milk, either through a natural separation process or by using a high speed centrifuge. The main difference between crème fraîche and crème crue comes from the way the cream has been matured, with or without bacterial ferments being present.
When it comes to taste and texture, there are several clear distinctions between crème fraîche from your local department store, traditional crème fraîche from Normandie (traditional French recipe), and traditional crème crue (also traditional French recipe). Let’s explore these differences below:
Crème Fraîche (Regular) – Pasteurized, thick, ripened cream to which bacteria cultures have been added. This kind of cream is prepared from pasteurized milk using a bacterial culture. It’s the most common type that you’ll be able to buy outside France. Its quality depends on the quality of the milk used and the bacterial cultures added to facilitate the fermentation process.
Crème Fraîche du Normandie – Unpasteurized cream prepared using milk that comes from the French region of Normandie. It’s unpasteurized, ripened for about a week, thick cream to which bacteria cultures have been added. The special taste of this product comes from the fact that cows eat the rich special grass that grows in the Normandie region.
Crème Crue (Crème Crue Fermière) – Unpasteurized cream to which no bacteria cultures have been added. Because this cream has been naturally fermented for about 2 days, its flavor is slightly different compared to crème fraîche.
I hope that now you understand a bit more about the way crème fraîche and crème crue are being produced, and the differences between them. Search for them at your local producers and see which one you like most!
This dessert can be upgraded …
Not only this crème fraîche bowl is delicious by default, but you can easily upgrade it or even transform it into a totally different culinary experience. Here are a few of my ideas:
- Use amazing spices – Vanilla, cinnamon or cardamom will give this dessert a whole new taste (my wife loves cardamom, I love cinnamon).
- Include a few nuts on top – Walnuts, pecans, cashew nuts or pine nuts are perfect for adding some texture (and more nutrients) to this little treat.
- Coconut chips for crunchiness – These healthy coconut-based chips will add plenty of crunchiness and nutrients, especially good fats and lots of gut-friendly fiber.
- Dried fruit to make it sweeter – Why not use 1-2 tsp of raisins, 1-2 medjool dates or maybe 1 dry fig? This is all you need to enrich this treat and bring it to a whole new level of deliciousness.
- Use crème crue intead of crème fraîche – Try switching crème fraîche for crème crue. You can probably find crème crue by visiting small local milk producers in the area where you live. Chances are that you’ll find unpasteurized crème crue – that’s crème crue made from raw milk.
This frozen bowl can be served as a decadent dessert (low-carb and keto approved) but I can tell you from experience that it works great as a recovery meal as well. I often use it after one of those 15 km walks in the forest and it’s amazing every time.
It’s perfectly refreshing on a hot summer night but this doesn’t mean that it isn’t delicious all year round. Experience with it to see how and when you like it!
If you decide to try it, let me know how it turned out for you and what extras you’ve added. Your 5-star review and a comment would be highly appreciated … if you liked it, of course. Ta-daaa!
Enjoy this decadent dessert without guilt because it’s super-duper healthy. And please share it with someone close to you!
What’s your favorite way to use crème fraîche? Have you tried something like this before? Let’s chat in the comments!
1-Min Crème Fraîche Love Bowl | Raw & Delicious
Equipment
- Simple Bowl
Ingredients
- 400 g crème fraîche (full-fat, 30% fat or more)
- 200-300 g frozen sour cherries
- 20-30 g dark chocolate (85% or more)
Instructions
- Note: Make sure that both crème fraîche and sour cherries are cold. Ideally, the crème fraîche should be stored in the fridge prior to using it, while the sour cherries must ideally come from the freezer (you can also use fresh sour cherries if that’s what you want).
- Add crème fraîche into a medium sized bowl.
- Add frozen cherries into the crème fraîche bowl (except for 2-3 tablespoons) and let them soak into the cream.
- Use a tablespoon to mix cherries into the cream for about 10-20 seconds.
- Decorate on top with the remaining sour cherries and the pieces of dark chocolate (use as much as you want).
- That was it. Enjoy without guilt!
Absolutely delicious! Just shared this bowl with my husband last night and he was like WOW!