This my friends is the best caramel apple pie smoothie, and the perfect autumn smoothie with cozy and sweet apple caramel flavors. You may have seen this smoothie before – about a year ago when I posted it on Instagram. This is the smoothie I made at the Finnish Smoothie Championship last year and I won! I’ve been waiting for autumn and the perfect apples to tweak the recipe a bit. So here’s the updated version of a winner smoothie!
How to make a dessert smoothie?
It all starts with the flavor you are craving. Is it chocolate, berries, cake, caramel? With my caramel apple pie smoothie I’m going for super cozy pie like flavors with sweet apple notes and caramel.
Three essential elements
In my smoothie kitchen the perfect dessert smoothie has these three elements:
- Creaminess: soaked nuts and seeds, soaked buckwheat, soaked oats, coconut cream all work amazingly as a creamy base for smoothies. Last year I used soaked cashews, but this time I wanted to create an even more nourishing smoothie so I used both soaked buckwheat groats and soaked cashews. These two together are quite a match with a mild and pleasant nutty flavor. Of course also the smoothie staple – frozen banana – adds a lovely cold creaminess.
- Sweetness: When I’m making my caramel apple pie smoothie, the key element is of course the caramel. It has to be thick, velvety and sweet. I love to use dates to make the caramel as it’s just the most simple way to get a rich caramel consistency & flavor. I altered my original caramel recipe a bit by adding nut butter to make it even softer and richer. One good tip about the smoothie base: it of course has to taste yummy on its own, but it doesn’t have to be very sweet – otherwise the smoothie might taste too sweet (if there’s such a thing as too sweet 🙂 ) This smoothie isn’t sweetened with anything else except my apple-pumpkin butter (and apple & banana).
- Crunchiness: I’d say the crunchy cookie like elements is what makes this smoothie stand out from the crowd. And what makes this smoothie like PIE. A raw pie to be exact, because I use raw pecans and buckwheat to make these crunchy little bites. So when making a dessert smoothie, I warmly recommend adding some delicious crunch on top!
If you want to make this autumn a little bit sweeter, why not start with this apple caramel pie smoothie?
🙂 Happy October!
THE BEST CARAMEL APPLE PIE SMOOTHIE
Prep time:
Total time:
Serves: 2
1 cup = 2,4 dl NOTE: Prep time doesn’t include the passive soaking time of buckwheat groats and cashews.
Ingredients
- [b]Smoothie[/b]
- 1/4 cup buckwheat groats (when soaked, this will be ~1/3 cup soaked buckwheat groats)
- 1/3 cup cashews (when soaked, this will be a heaped 1/3 cup soaked cashews)
- 1/4 cup apple sauce (recipe [url href=”https://www.myberryforest.com/perfect-healthy-apple-sauce/” target=”_blank”]here[/url]) or apple-pumpkin sauce (recipe [url href=”/?p=2862″ target=”_blank”]here[/url])
- 1 frozen banana
- 1 small organic apple
- 1/2 cup almond milk (or other plant-based milk)
- Pinch of salt
- Optional, for extra vitamin-C boost: 1 tsp Organic Burst baobab powder
- [br]
- [b]Caramel[/b]
- 4 pitted dates (e.g.medjool)
- 2 tbsp almond milk (or other plant-based milk)
- 1 tbsp nut butter (I used almond-walnut-pecan butter but any nut butter will do!)
- 1/4 tsp Ceylon cinnamon
- Pinch of salt
- [br]
- [b]Raw pecan bites[/b]
- 1/4 cup pecans
- 1/4 cup buckwheat groats
- 2 pitted medjool dates
- 2 tsp coconut oil
- 1/4 tsp Ceylon cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp ground cardamom
- Pinch of salt
Instructions
- [b]Preparations for smoothie base[/b]: Soak buckwheat groats overnight (cover with water and add 1 tsp apple cider vinegar). Soak cashews a minimum of 2 hours in water and a pinch of salt.
- [b]Raw pecan bites:[/b] blend all ingredients in a food processor until a sticky dough ball can be formed. If you’re using small dates (smaller than medjool), add more than 2 to get a sticky dough consistency. Flatten the dough onto a silicone mold (or any tin lined with a parchment paper) and put in the freezer for at least 20 min before cutting into pieces.
- [b]Caramel:[/b] blend all ingredients together in a food processor.
- [b]Smoothie:[/b] Drain and rinse buckwheat and cashews. Blend them together with all other smoothie ingredients in a high-speed blender until smooth consistency reached.
- [b]Assembling the smoothie:[/b] spread the caramel to the sides of two small serving jars before pouring in the smoothie. Cut raw pecan bites into small cubes. Pour the smoothie into the jars and add raw pecan bites on top.
- Enjoy the sweetness 🙂
ps. Here’s my Winner smoothie from last year! And on Instagram too 🙂
I love adding buckwheat to smoothies! Makes them so creamy. And anything with homemade caramel sauce is a win in my book. Awesome recipe, Tiina!
Thank you Nisha! It really does add a lovely level of creaminess to smoothies. And it’s nourishing too – total win-win 🙂 Wishing you an amazing weekend 🙂
Wow this sounds amazing !!! X
Thank you Amanda 🙂 Autumn flavors in a smoothie are just the best 😉 Have a lovely weekend <3
Wow, very good!
Thank you so much Lisa 🙂 Have a lovely weekend!
I absolutely agree, those are the most important things for perfect smoothie making! I might add thick enough to eat with a spoon too, although perhaps the creaminess element already has that covered 🙂 Your date caramel looks super luscious, I am definitely trying your ratios next time I make some. And I have to try the caramel swirls on the sides of the glass too! I’m not sure if I can pull it off, but it looks so neat!
Thank you Natalie!! And a very good point about the spoon 🙂 I might just add it to the post as a tip 😉 I find my caramel ratios varying from one recipe to another heheh it’s just that I never know if I want a more DATE-y sticky caramel, more runny (with water, mylk etc) or then super creamy with coconut cream or thick with nut butter. But one discovery is that whatever the ratio is, it always tastes super delicious 😉 With dates, it’s kind of impossible to go wrong (you might agree on this?!) 🙂 Wishing you a wonderful weekend! Can’t imagine what autumn is like there!! Must be still quite warm (compared to a chilly 30 F morning here ..hehe) <3