Vegan Chocolate Almond Tart with Raspberries

I bought this long shaped tart tin years ago and barely used it because I find tarts in the shape really difficult to style! I’ve since been very inspired to by beautiful long tarts on Instagram and decided it was time to give it another go.

Although I make a number of great desserts on my blog the reality is that my favourite ones almost always contain chocolate (I’m sure that comes as no surprise) and I was set on making something very very chocolates that I could get excited about when I opened the freezer. The tart uses my current favourite baked chocolate biscuit like crust that I’ve been using in a lot of my recipes lately. It doesn’t have a strong almond flavour but it does contain a fair bit of almond in both the crust and the filling so I decided it needed to be mentioned. The filling is incredibly luxurious and creamy! As with all my desserts, this tart is vegan, refined sugar-free, mostly gluten free and dairy free.

I’ve also recently been thinking long and hard about the direction of my blog. I started this blog when I was still struggling with my health but saw such a profound difference in my health when I changed my diet that I started a food blog to share my passion for health-promoting food and also as a way to keep myself accountable and ensure I was eating well, adding variety to my diet and being creative with the food I ate. Although I still absolutely love my blog for all those reasons, fast forward two and a half years to where I am now and I can safely say that I am no longer sick. More than that I finally have closure over my health experiences and all that I went through. I had very little support from the medical industry as well as the alternative health/wellness industry because nobody knew what was wrong with me! It pains me because my experience although unique is very common and women are simply not getting the help or support that they need. For this reason, I am focusing on building the health section of this blog to be a blog about hormone health for women. The recipe section of my blog is mostly going to stay the same but may change its flavour to a blog about eating for hormone health. All the recipes I have created on the blog have been an amazing support to me in balancing my hormones and so I want to make that more obvious through my writing.

I was a little concerned that highlighting hormones throughout my blog would mean that I might need a total rebrand that could mean a name change, (something I don’t want because I love Hazel & Cacao) however the more I thought about it the more I realised that the name is perfect for this new angle. Initially my blog name came from my favourite chocolate combination which is chocolate and hazelnuts (ie Nutella) but now that it’s also much more than that: If you were to ask me what were the main driving factors in my diet that helped me regain my health and balance my severely deficient hormones the answer would we simply this: chocolate, nuts and juicing! So to me, Hazel & Cacao now also represents two of the main elements that helped me regain my health: nuts and chocolate! Exactly how and why is something I’ll write up for everyone in another health post.

If you have been following me for a while you will know that I’ve been struggling with the new direction of my blog for almost a year. I think ever since I knew I was no longer sick I’ve wanted to share my story but it was so difficult for me to know how to make the transition from food blogger to health/hormone/anxiety/motherhood blogger while still retaining the recipes that I love to create. I now feel like my brain has finally come to terms with the new direction as I’ve realised all of the topics I’ve mentioned above fit under one: hormones. I now have a much clearer picture of what the future of the blog will look like I couldn’t be more excited because this is what I’ve always cared about most! Hormones are my number one passion as weird as that sounds (it’s so important to me I’m going back to university to study it) and I’m almost relieved to let go of the food blogger label because I’m not a pro cook, in fact I know very little about cooking and baking etc all I know is that food heals and that’s amazing.

If you have been following me for a while, I ask that you bare with me as I slowly make changes to my website and my blog. I’m not sure how long it will take to get the look, feel and content I am aiming for but now with a clearer direction in mind, I’m going to attempt to get there as quick as I can! Hope you enjoy this recipe, its a really really good one!