I’m obsessed with cold foods right now, which is only natural as it’s been surprisingly warm here. I’m also quite in love with sweet foods at the moment. My cravings for sweet and cold have been stronger now that I’m pregnant – baby Berry no 3 is due in October! I think I’ve eaten a years worth of nice cream and puddings during the past three months. I’ve also come up with some cool & yummy healthy recipes like this Cookies ‘n Cream chia pudding. It’s a lovely vegan and gluten-free treat, which I usually share with my son & daughter. Sometimes though, I eat two jars just on my own – I call it necessary sweet fuel for me and the baby 😉
I find it pretty challenging to categorize sweet and healthy dessert-like layered chia puddings. I often eat them as a snack between lunch and dinner, sometimes even for breakfast, but my kids usually share a jar for dessert. So I’ll use a new category invented by my talented friend Natalie from Feastingonfruit: SNACK-SSERT 🙂 This creamy, Oreo-like snack-ssert in pudding and cookie crumble form is a combination of nutritious chia seeds, soaked cashews and coconut cream for the pudding; almonds, buckwheat groats, almond butter and cocoa powder as main ingredients for the cookie crumble. The choco cookie crumble is really chocolate-y, I often eat it just on its own or on top of other puddings and overnight oats.
If you’re used to chia puddings which are super easy to whip up in mere minutes, don’t be afraid to try this one out. Even though there are two “extra” steps, one of the steps is a passive one: soaking of cashews for a few hours. The other step: blending the chocolate cookie crumble takes about 5 minutes. You can prepare the two easy stages a day before you make these creamy snack-ssert jars. Just keep the soaked, drained and rinsed cashews in a sealed container in the fridge (preferably max one day), and the choco cookie crumble keeps well in the fridge for up to five days. So when these two steps are done, it actually does take you about 10 minutes to make these jars!
Wishing you happy dessert snacking!
- Cream chia pudding
- Makes about 1 cup of pudding
- ⅓ cup soaked cashews (a little bit less than ⅓ cup raw cashews)
- ⅓ cup coconut cream (1 can of chilled coconut milk should be enough, and some cream is left for the topping, too)
- ⅓ cup plant-based milk (I used oat milk)
- 1,5 tbsp chia seeds
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp light agave nectar (or sweetener of choice)
- pinch of salt
- Chocolate cookie crumble
- Makes about 1 cup of cookie crumble
- ⅓ cup almonds
- ¼ cup buckwheat groats
- 3 tbsp almond butter (I use unsweetened)
- 1,5 tbsp dark cocoa powder
- 1,5 tbsp coconut oil, room temperature (soft)
- 3 tsp maple syrup (or sweetener of choice)
- two pinches of salt
- Optional toppings
- Whipped coconut cream
- A few strawberries
- Preparations for Cream chia pudding: Chill a can of coconut milk in the fridge overnight. Soak cashews for 2-4 hours before blending the pudding.
- Cream chia pudding: Rinse and drain cashews.
- Scoop out the creamy part of the coconut milk can (coconut cream).
- Mix all pudding ingredients in a high-speed blender or a food processor until completely smooth. The more powerful the kitchen gadget, the smoother the pudding will be.
- Cover pudding and put in the fridge while you make the cookie crumble.
- Chocolate cookie crumble: in a food processor blend almonds and buckwheat groats first until crumbly (but not flour like consistency).
- Add all other cookie crumble ingredients in the food processor and blend until a dough like consistency is formed. It is quite crumbly, but also firm enough to be pressed into small pieces (for the cream pudding).
- Layering the Cookies 'n Cream Chia Pudding: Take about ¼ cup of the cookie crumble and shape into about 10 small pieces (round or square). Mix a few of these pieces into the creamy chia pudding.
- Divide the rest of the choco cookie crumble in half.
- Press a thick "cookie" layer to the bottom of a small jar (the jars I use are about 1 cup). Leave about half of the cookie layer for the top, too. Add half of the creamy pudding layer on top of the cookie layer.
- Optional: push a few tiny cookie crumble squares or balls into the creamy pudding so that you can see cookie pieces in the pudding.
- Add the rest of the cookie crumble on top of the pudding. Repeat for the other jar.
- Optional toppings: Whip up coconut cream with a hand mixer (you can use what is left of the cream from the chilled coconut milk can). I didn't add any sweetener to the cream but you can add some if you wish.
- Add a dollop of whipped coconut cream on top of the pudding jar and serve with fresh strawberries.
Soaking cashews:I usually soak more than required in the recipe, because I like to use the remaining soaked cashews to make cashew milk or cashew cream. You can find some soaking tips and recipes in this post about nuts and seeds.
Chia puds this beautiful can’t be classified into any of the usual categories because honestly there is no time of day this would not be perfect! They are very much snack-ssert material with a hint of breakfast to them too 🙂 I’ve been anxiously waiting to see what sort of cookies and cream creation you had coming. You made the cream part extra decadent with the coconut + cashew combination! I really need to try one of your chia pudding blends. And whipped cream makes it more like Cookies and Cream and Cream which translates to delicious and delicious and delicious! That long stemmed strawberry has me feeling all fancy and classy too! Are those berries from the forest? They look extra sweet and ripe and yum <3
Thank you!! Snack-ssert describes these little jars perfectly so thank you for coming up with the fancy new word 🙂 I’ve been craving all kinds of creamy cold foods lately, and I find these puddings to be spot on!! I wish these strawberries were from the forest 🙂 We do have some wild tiny strawbs growing around here, but they’re super tiny. Will pick some up in July when they’re ripe! Lots of love and a happy week to you <3