This is one combination that I cannot keep to myself...it's so good!

Many years ago, I used to enjoy making fresh raw vegan cacao coconut milk, but I think I drank so much that I gave up the attachment to cacao years ago. I just don't crave it.

Yet, because I have a sapote tree, and the fruit is SO sweet, I often use bitter cacao to balance out the sweetness. I often make dehydrated foods with the sapote cacao combo but this week, I am eating it fresh by itself.

Here's the way I do it:
Peel the fully ripe sapote. Mash the fruit with a fork, making sure to get out the small seeds (and big ones too). Stir in cacao powder to taste. It is then like a chocolate pudding. I eat this with fresh raw coconut milk (I use the mature coconuts, so the milk is not sweet). People say this combo tastes like a rich chocolate milk shake. Today I also had this combo with butternut squash. Very good.

Raw vegan FRESH chocolate pudding. SO amazing!

I have also made dehydrated raw vegan sprouted buckwheat cereal with this combo.

I have also made dehydrated chocolate with the cacao-sapote combo. I usually add a lot more cacao to make it thicker and then spread on banana and thai coconuts slices and dehydrate. People find it a delicious treat.

Last but not least, I have used the thicker version to make chocolate covered figs in the dehydrator. I get really ripe blue/black figs that I grow and cut them in half. I spread almond butter first and then the thick sapote chocolate second. TRuly exquisite. People who get ONE piece would pay $2, they are that good.

You might wonder why I dehydrate so much with this stuff...well, I just get so many sapotes and I don't want them to go to waste. To me, they are date substitutes.

My dream is to one day eat a black sapote. I have never seen one in person.

My sapotes have green skin and white fruit inside.

never tried a sapote
sounds deelish!

My sapotes look like this, except with fewer seeds and much bigger with more fruit. The sapote in the picture looked like it was picked way too early and was not let to mature. I have never seen one with that many huge seeds. Usually, there will only be one giant seed, a couple small ones and a few tiny ones. When a sapote is very ripe, the skin turns a shade of yellow (from green) and gets very thin. You can tell how thick and unripe the skin is on that pictured one. The flesh is very creamy and custard-like when ripe.

[articles.latimes.com]

The top picture is when it becomes very ripe. At this stage, the fruit is so soft that it could not be sold at the farmers market, which is why they only sell them when they are green.

[www.strangewonderfulthings.com]

The next article covers the health benefits:

[www.hort.purdue.edu]

I am so jealous. I am not in a good mood today. I am angry. I wish I could live out my life. I wish I had a alot of money.

Chocolate sapote reminds me of when I was happy.

Suvine, have you ever eaten a black sapote? What are they like?

Tai, I would so love to try a chocolate sapote! I have never seen one anywhere in the UK. Sometimes we get chikoos (the caramel ones).

Can you post pics of your recipes (so I can drool like Homer Simpson)?

Bluespixie, I think I will try to post a youtube video next week. IT will be my first video. If it's too hard for me, then I will just post some pics. I heard I have to create an online web account to post pics. I also have never posted pics here either.

It really is so good. I have to share it with the world. Let more sapote trees be planted. I saw they sell sapote fruit on ebay. It stays hard for a long enough time to make it through the mail.

Right now I am drinking chilled peppermint water with a bowl of chocolate sapote + coconut milk and I am reading an amazing book. I am so ecstatic. Peppermint water is one of my favorite ways to drink water. I fill up a mason jar with peppermint leaves and then top it up with freshly distilled water. I let sit for hours first on the counter and then in the fridge. It is so good. Basically I am consuming a liquid peppermint patty dessert right now.

(I later blend or juice the leaves. I don't waste them).

Hi Bluespixie, so I am getting back to your request for pictures.

It's going to take me a few videos to show more recipes.

THe first video just shows my tree and some ripe fruit and how to peel and mash the fruit.

[www.youtube.com]

THe second video shows how to make a basic chocolate pudding.

[www.youtube.com]

THe next videos will show specific recipes. THis latest batch was just used to make chocolate milk with a base of fresh coconut milk, which is the best chocolate milk I ever had (comparing to childhood dairy recipes and adult raw vegan versions). I did also make simple fruit salads with it too. Anyway, next week, I will show some recipes and good dishes.

WARNING for sapote:
If you add sapote to the vitamix in a smoothie, it will thicken the smoothie to an unpleasant degree. Instead of drinking a smoothie, you will need a spoon. That is why I stir the cacao into the sapote and why I don't use a blender or a food processor. The only tool I use to mash it is a fork. When it is really ripe, the sapote dissolves really well in a coconut milk base for a fruit salad.

Is sapote sweet?

Tai


I saw a video where someone was saying that chocolate sapote tastes like chocolate. But when I read the comments, a few people said that it does NOT taste like chocolate. So... I'm kind of confused. Which is it?
I was somewhat intrigued. Also, I did not know that sapote was different from chocolate sapote. I guess that one does not taste like chocolate and does not have a dark chocolate colored flesh and the chocolate sapote does.

La Veronique:
I never tried brown/black sapote. That is why I label my videos as white sapote.

To answer JTP's question, my white sapote is VERY sweet. It's so sweet, that it really can't be eaten alone. I have tried different white sapotes. My friend's sapote trees 20 miles north of me are not as sweet, even though it seems like the same variety. Perhaps it has to do with how much they are watered. I don't know.

Anyway, I don't crave chocolate, but cacao goes really well with white sapote because cacao is bitter and sapote is sweet. It's a nice blend and it tastes like truly authentic chocolate, especially when combined with either mature or young coconut for it's fat content, because it adds a nice creaminess. Sapotes are so custard like, that it almost seems like there might be some bit of fat, but I know that not every sapote is exquisite like that from all trees.

Anyway, La Veronique, I think cacao is what makes something taste truly like chocolate.

To further answer your question, I was at a mexican market and I think they were calling this orange yam-flavored fruit (mamey) as sapote too! So, sapote can be white/yellow, orange (called Mamey) or black/brown with distinct appearances.

Mamey? Hmmm...will keep my ears/eyes peeled for that too.
Thanks Tai.

Also, maybe your friend's sapote didn't bear sweet fruit because the soil did not have as much minerals...it is what gives the fruit or veggie most of its flavors..the minerals in the soil.

I've had black / chocolate sapote. It's a bit like a combination of thick sweet chocolate mousse and melted dark chocolate. Very rich when ripe and very yummy, but as all fruit it needs to be soft and ripe. It's not something you can eat more than one or two of at a time.

The Chocolate Sapote is a Persimmon and is in the same genus (Diospyros) as the common Asian Persimmon and the American Persimmon. The American Persimmon is hardy to -32 degrees F. By repeatedly crossing the Chocoloate Sapote and the American Persimmon this cold hardiness could be transferred to the Chocolate Sapote. They could be grown in Canada!

[uncommonfruit.cias.wisc.edu]

[en.wikipedia.org]

[en.wikipedia.org]

Tai Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Bluespixie, so I am getting back to your
> request for pictures.
>
> It's going to take me a few videos to show more
> recipes.
>
> THe first video just shows my tree and some ripe
> fruit and how to peel and mash the fruit.
>
> [www.youtube.com]
>
> THe second video shows how to make a basic
> chocolate pudding.
>
> [www.youtube.com]

Hi Tai! I never got round to saying thanks for you posting these videos, so thank you they were really interesting . The texture is very different to what I expected! It almost looked like scrambled egg, or like watery durian flesh.

- and the strained water looked really tasty!

(I'll get to eat one some day)