I successfully de-veganized an avocado cake recipe.

This weekend I was gifted with six ripe avocados.  Half were made into guacamole.  Three avocados makes quite a bit of guacamole for two people.  I consumed a hefty portion of guacamole for dinner that evening and have been unable to face the green leftovers ever since.

After some extensive Googling, I found one recipe for chocolate avocado cake, cited to Rajani, author of the blog Eat Write Think.  To my surprise, the recipe was vegan.  I furiously continued to Google recipes for chocolate avocado cake, only to be redirected, again and again, back to Rajani’s vegan recipe.

For the first time in my life, I considered baking a vegan cake.  And then I changed my mind.

Jeni’s De-veganized Chocolate Avocado Cake

Ingredients
-3 cups of unbleached, all purpose flour
-6 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Ghirardelli)
-1/2 teaspoon of salt
-2 teaspoons of baking powder
-2 teaspoons of baking soda
-2 cups of granulated sugar
-1/4 cup of butter (original recipe calls for vegetable oil)
-1 egg (original recipe does not include an egg)
-1 mashed hass avocado
-2 cups of room temperature water
-2 tablespoons of white vinegar
-1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (the original recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract only)
-1 teaspoon of almond extract


Frosting
-4 oz of semisweet chocolate, chopped
-1/4 cup of heavy cream


Directions
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a bundt pan with butter.  I floured the pan as well which was probably unnecessary and made the outside of the cake white with flour.

-Sift together the dry ingredients into a bowl, except the granulated sugar.

-Mix all of the wet ingredients together, including the avocado.  I used the blender which eliminated avocado chunks.  Then, stir in the granulated sugar.

-Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients all at once, and stir until smooth.

-Pour the batter into the bundt pan and bake for about an hour.

-Remove the cake from the pan and cool on a rack.

–   Kirbie’s Cravings suggests making a frosting by microwaving the chopped chocolate and cream for about 30 seconds.  Stir and cool.  Instead of piping the ganache onto the cake, I drizzled the frosting like a glaze.

Critique: I find the cake’s texture to be moist, dense, and tender.  Even with the glaze, the chocolate flavor is mild.  I wished for a more intense chocolate flavor, but Jake was content.  Another food blogger found the vegan version of the cake (sans butter and egg) to be chewy.  I did not feel my cake seemed chewy, however, it is different than a traditional cake in regards to flavor and texture.



Four avocados down, two left to go. . .