I diiiiid it!

I’ve been in such a good mood today 🙂

Maybe it’s five days of veganism having an effect, maybe it’s because it’s Friday. Maybe it’s because of a great story I got today (construction workers on an almost-finished big shop told not to use the car park before next week’s opening – in case it gets dirty!)

Or maybe it’s because of these:

I was driving home late yesterday after work and doing the horses and knew I had to make chocolate cake, not only to finish off the vegan feature but to try and prove my doubting colleagues wrong! I thought I’d find a good recipe on t’internet and just get on with it.

Then, I realised that, as far as fat went, I only had olive oil (not the way forward for cake!) and coconut oil.

I knew the coconut would work but when I  used it for these cookies, although they went down really well at work, one of the boys mentioned the slight coconut flavour and I didn’t want ANYTHING to affect the chocolateness of the vegan cake.

I couldn’t be bothered to go out at gone 7pm and buy soya spread or oil just for the cakes and I didn’t want to use yoghurt or apple puree because I really wanted these to be rich and gooooood.

Then, my eye was caught by these:

I’ve never been a huge fan of avocado but I’ve always been a huge fan of bargains! And I thought a vegan week was a good time to get these healthy dudes into my diet. I also knew Heather was doing an “avocado week” so I thought there would be inspiration there…

But I suddenly thought, these are (healthy) fat! I’ve had chocolate avocado pudding before and knew it worked so would it work in a cake…? I Googled something like “substituting avocado for butter” and found conflicting advice but the upshot seemed to be it was possible…

A lot of blending and some complete guesswork later and I had something that tasted good, in raw form anyway. I’d lost the will to live too by then so I just bunged them in the oven and hoped for the best…

And it worked; I haven’t got a clue how! It was the first time I’d used flax “eggs” too and I’d just chucked in some soya milk and cider vinegar at the last minute because the mixture seemed too dry but I tried one of these as soon as they were half-cooled.

Really chocolatey, really moist (sorry) and just sweet enough. You can’t taste the avocado at all but I think it gives it a really good texture.

Preheat oven to 150C, line a muffin tin with cases and take:

110g really ripe avocado

110g sugar

110g flour (I used plain white GF, then it ran out and I made up the weight with self-raising GF flour but I think any would probably work!)

10g cocoa powder, mixed with 2tbsp just-boiled water

1tbsp ground flaxseed, with 3tbsp warm water

1 tbsp soya milk

1tsp cider vinegar

1 heaped tsp baking powder

Make up the flax egg and mix the cocoa and water in separate bowls.

Puree the avocado till really smooth then add everything else and mix till well blended. Scoop into the tin, about 1/2 to 1/3 up each cup and bake for 20-25 minutes until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

For icing, I wanted to make avocado buttercream but it was too late by then! I just blended 150g silken tofu till smooth and added 70g melted dark chocolate and 4tbsp sieved icing sugar. Those quantities make too much for the cakes (I made 9 little ones) but I’d imagine you could, possibly, just eat the rest with a spoon (not that I did of course…)

I took them into work (and had to pose for pictures to go with the piece; not happy) then handed them out. And everyone liked them! It was hilarious the way everyone was so surprised when they said “this is actually really nice” and especially one girl, whose face dropped about a foot when I said they were vegan. But even she said how much she liked it 🙂

I’m so pleased with these. I thought, half way through cooking, that the chances of them being edible, given the amount of guessing and hoping involved, were slim to none and I was already thinking I’d have to make some others over the weekend so realising they worked was brilliant!

They were fairly dense little cakes and I doubt these proportions would work for a big one because I reckon it would just sink in the middle. But the avocado thang is definitely something I’m going to keep experimenting with.

Do you like avocado? What’s your favourite way to use it…?