STRAWBERRIES WITH LUCUMA CUSTARD CREAM
Strawberries have got to be the best thing about summer. God must've been in the best mood the day he invented a berry so indulgent, sweet, blissful, aromatic and naughty tasting, while the health benefits of it are plentiful. But I'm pretty sure he must've just about followed that same protocol with other fruits too, except not everyone knows about them... yet.
One of these fruits is called lucuma (or lukuma). It grows abundantly in Peru, Ecuador and Chile, but we get it in a powdered form, although even there they prefer to dry it and grind into powder before adding to their recipes. When fresh, the smell makes me think of maple syrup mixed with pumpkin. In Peru lucuma ice cream is even more popular, than chocolate flavoured. I can imagine why- when I make white raw chocolate with lucuma powder, it's gone at a dangerous speed.
So can you even begin to imagine what happened when I mixed strawberries with lucuma? I will never tell, that I didn't share and no one will ever know, because I didn't share. Oopse. Well what I did do is somehow manage to record the recipe...
LUCUMA CUSTARD CREAM
For the cream
1 cup almonds, soaked overnight
2 cups water
For the custard
1 cup almond cream
0.5 cup dates
1 small mango/ 1 banana, peeled, chopped and frozen
3 tbsp lucuma powder
0.5 tsp vanilla extract
And strawberries, many many strawberries
Make the cream the same way you would make a nut milk.
Put all the custard ingredients in to a blender and blend until creamy.
Note: If you prefer your custard warm, which you might like over cakes and crumbles, do not freeze the mango/banana.
Chop/slice/dice the strawberries and pour custard cream all over to serve.