A Christmas dessert : The Buggy-Frutti Advent Wreaths
Hello everyone!
It’s Christmas time rush here, I found some little time for sharing with you my dessert for Christmas!
As you start knowing me, there will be a lot of healthy ingredients (and bugs of course)! Some vitamins, proteins and healthy fats for this Christmas dessert! The chocolate, roasted nuts, fruits and insects will satisfy our sweet tooth!
I made it with some fruits because cookies are too mainstream for Christmas! (or because I don’t know how to bake properly Christmas cookies)
There are two different mini Advent Wreaths.
- The first one is the “Tropical snow”. It will give you a little ray of sunlight for these short days.
- The second one is the “Crunchy forest” made with seasonly products because insects and fake advent wreath is enough original!
For a topping, I chose to add some green and red with a strawberry marmelade!
Let’s start with the recipes!
Ingredients (for 5 advent wreaths) :
For the “Tropical snow” :
- 100 grams of dark chocolate
- 10 rings of dried pineapple
- 20 crickets
- Some coconut powder
- Some dried Goji berries
- Coconut oil
For the “Crunchy forest”:
- 100 grams of chocolate
- 10 rings of dried apple
- 30 grams of different nuts
- 30 grams of mealworms
- Some dried Goji berries
- Cinnamon
- Coconut oil
For the red marmelade:
- 50 grams of frozen strawberries
- 2 teaspoons of chia seeds
- 3 fresh mint leaves
Directions
Preparation of the insects
Grease a baking sheet with 1 teaspoon of coconut oil.
Preheat your oven at 350°F with the greased baking sheet (the coconut oil will melt).
Put the mealworms and the crickets in a boiling pot of water during 2 minutes.
Drain them in a strainer and transfer them to a paper towel.
Spread the coconut oil with a paper towel on the baking sheet then split the mealworms from the crickets on it. Add some cinnamon on the mealworms and roast the insects in the oven for 15 minutes.
Preparation of the fruits & nuts
You can dry your fruits by yourself in a dehydrator or in the oven at low temperature. You have to prepare them early, it take many hours! You can also buy them already dried.
For the nuts, it’s on your choice! I chose to use some walnuts, Brazil nuts, cashews and pecans.
Optional : Roast the nuts in the oven at 195°F for 1 hour.
Crush the nuts.
Preparation of the “Tropical snow advent wreath”
Melt the chocolate in a double boiler.
Put a pineapple ring in the chocolate and spread some coconut powder on it. Put the ring on a sheet of parchment paper.
Let’s make the second layer! Put the second ring in the chocolate and spread some coconut powder on it.
Use 4 crickets for the candles and some goji berries for the decoration.
Put in a cool place once you prepared all of your advent wreaths.
Preparation of the “Crunchy forest advent wreath”
Melt the chocolate in a double boiler.
Put an apple ring in the chocolate and spread some nuts on it. Put the ring on a sheet of parchment paper.
Let’s make the second layer! Put the second ring in the chocolate and spread some nuts and mealworms on it.
Use 4 goji berries for the candles.
Put in a cool place once you prepared all of your advent wreaths.
Preparation of the red marmelade
Defrost your strawberries in the fridge the previous day.
Once they are defrosted, crush them with a fork and add the chia seeds. They will absorb the juice and will inflate (it takes a few hours for giving you a jammy aspect!).
Add the whole mint leaves.
Dressing
Once it is hard and cold, it is ready!
Put the red sauce, in a little cup and serve.
Et voilà!
Some information
The dark chocolate will relax you after your hard battle for putting properly the “cricket’s candles”.
The Brazil nut is the naturally most radioactive ingredient!
The candles are fake ones. I don’t recommend you to try to light the crickets or the goji berries.
If you have some ingredients left, you can toss, for example, some whole Brazil nuts into the chocolate for small “Bûche de Noël”. Let your creativity speaks!
As dried fruit are naturally sweet, you don’t have to add some sugar.
You can use the mint leaves for the decoration.
I hope that you will like this original dessert and you want to try it soon for surprising your guests!
I wish you a merry Christmas to all of you!
I have to leave you for now, the dinner is not ready yet…
Take care!
Florian
This post was supposed to be released yesterday, everything seemed to be pretty well, the food was nearly ready, and then, at 5PM : A little Influenza virus wanted to spent Christmas with me…
So, I had eaten 3 crickets, some mealworms and was in bed at 9PM… I could share only a little time with my family but it was still great! I hope you had some great time and were in better form than me!
I’ve only ever tried one spicy cricket, but I think I could eat more if they were roasted in cinnamon and covered in chocolate. This looks beautiful.