Cinnamon Rolls — shannonmarie style

Cin­na­mon Rolls
by shan­non­marie

1¼ cup almond meal *
1¼ cup ground flaxseed
1 dash cayenne pep­per
1½ table­spoon cin­na­mon
1 pinch sea salt
1 cup soft pit­ted dates
¼ cup water
1 tea­spoon vanilla
.125 cup olive oil
.125 cup agave nec­tar
¼ cup raisins, plus a lit­tle extra
¼ cup chopped nuts

*almond meal is a spe­cial blend of shannonmarie’s, which includes finely ground almond and nut-​​pulp – but using just almond pulp will work fine.

Com­bine the almond meal, ground flaxseed, dash of cayenne pep­per, ¹⁄₂ Tbsp. cin­na­mon and pinch sea salt in a bowl and set aside.

In a food proces­sor or blender, process dates, water and vanilla into a paste. Remove half of the date paste and add it to the dry ingre­di­ents, along with the olive oil and agave. Mix these ingre­di­ents with your hands until it forms a dough. You may need to add a lit­tle water and/​or agave if it is too dry, but be care­ful not to add too much.

Spread the dough out on a piece of parch­ment paper, and flatten/​shape it into a 1/​4-​​inch thick square.

Add ¹⁄₄ cup raisins and 1 Tbsp. of cin­na­mon to the rest of the date paste left in your food proces­sor or blender. Process until smooth. Then, spread a thin layer of the paste onto the dough square, mak­ing sure to cover the whole sur­face, and top with a sprin­kle of extra raisins and the chopped wal­nuts.

Using the parch­ment paper to help hold every­thing together, carefully/​tightly roll the square into a log. Chill in the refrig­er­a­tor, and then slice into about 1-​​inch thick rounds. I usu­ally make about 8 cin­na­mon rolls out of this recipe.

These cin­na­mon rolls can be eaten right out of the refrig­er­a­tor or warmed on a dehy­dra­tor. I top mine with a gen­er­ous icing of raw almond but­ter mixed with agave, vanilla and sea salt (or if I have more time, I make a cashew and coconut whipped cream icing, as seen in the photo). Yum-​​O!

GoneRaw mem­ber kyla posted a sug­ges­tion on that thread for a frost­ing made of  1 cup coconut oil mixed with ¹⁄₄ cup agave and a dash of vanilla….blended in the kitchen-​​aid until creamy….and then chilled for a bit.

The icing seen on the photo is a recipe for raw whipped cream from the Sunny Raw Kitchen blog, that shan­non­marie also uses for her Raw Sand­wich Cook­ies.