Thursday 8 November 2012

Megan empowers you to make vegan chocolate avocado cup cakes

Some of you have dreamed of this day.  Waited eagerly.  Maybe even salivated a little. 

I am sharing my recipe for vegan chocolate avocado muffins.  The idea of chocolate and avocado as a food combination is not a new one.  A lot of chinese resturants/cafe's will offer a chocolate avocado smoothie on their drinks menu.  To be honest, I've always been a bit skeptical.  I've always thought that avocado is for guacamole and guacamole alone.  I've had a Steven Covey-esque paradigm shift on this one.  Avocado is not just for guacamole, it's for cup cakes too!

Some time ago, a friend with a high-pitched voice and appropriately asymmetrical hair gave me a vegan food challenge - to make something delicious that combined chocolate and avocado.  I debated a few ideas in my mind before finally setlling on making these cup cakes with chocolate fudgy icing.  I gave them to the friend with the high pitched voice and appropriately asymmetrical hair as a thank you gift for feeding my cats while I was away from home over a weekend.

The positive feedback on rich, indulgent and delicious flavour of these cup cakes was so good that I've made them several times since.  I think part of the reason they work so well as a vegan indulgence is that quite often vegan cakes use tofu to replace the dairy component.  Usually, this works just fine; but for some flavours the nutty/soy-ish flavour of the tofu can permeate through.

The avocado has a much milder flavour, but it's texture is a great analogue for butter in this recipe. It gives you the best of both worlds, by helping the chocolate cake to be rich and moist, without lending that background of soy flavour.  It's perfect for vegan cakes, and would be also great for anyone who needs to avoid dairy food, or reduce saturated fat intake.  The omega 3 fatty acids in avocado are good for you.

The avocado also takes the place of butter in a rich fudgy icing, alowing the chocolate flavour to play the lead role in this treat.

Here's the recipes, it makes a lot of cup cakes but trust me, you'll need them.

You will need:

Dry ingredients
3 cups self raising flour
1/2 a cup cocoa powder
1/2 a teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar

'wet' incredients
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 ripe avocado
2 cups water
2tsp vanilla essence
2tbs white vinegar

You will have to:
Pre-heat your oven to 180C, lightly grease (cooking oil spray is fine) your muffin trays and set them aside.

In a big bowl; combine all of the dry ingredients.

In a seperate bowl mash the avocado until completely smooth.  This will take a few minutes if you're doing it by hand with a fork, you could be forgiven for using a blender or food processor for this job.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, then add the vanilla essence, vinegar, avocado and oil.  Mix to incorporate a little.

Add the water bit-by-bit until you have a glossy smooth cake batter.

Dispense the cake batter into the cup-cake trays.  You will get 8-10 big cupcakes or anywhere up to 24 miniature cupcakes.

Place the cup cakes in the oven.  They will take about 10-18 minutes to cook, depending on your oven and the size of your cupcakes.

Once they're cooked, remove from the oven and let them call in the trays for a few minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.

Now, you can make the icing.  You will need.

1 avocado
3 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2tsp vanilla essence
2tbs golden syrup

Mash the avocado until smooth.  My comments RE blenders/food processors remain valid here.
mix the vanilla essence and golden syrup with the avocado. 

Sift the icing sugar and cocoa into a large bowl, then incorporate the avocado mixture.  You may need to add a small amount of water to get the texture right. (it should be thick and fudgy, so that it will stick to the under-side of a knife or a spoon).  If your icing is too dry add a little water.  If it's too wet, add a little more icing sugar.

Place the icing in the fridge and leave there until the cup cakes are at room temperature. Leave it for at least an hour or so.

Spread the icing on top of the cupcakes, feel free to add any other decorations you like.  Be creative and have fun.

So, there it is.  You are now empowered to make your own delicious vegan chocolate avocado cupcakes.  How on earth am I ever going to convince anyone to feed my cats for me again?