Ok… first of all, stop looking at me like that.
Yea, I can see that crazy look on your face. But it’s me. The same person that brought you amazing Cream Cheese Cinnamon Rolls and Perfect Lemon Pound Cake. We trust each other. We have an understanding. Just go with me on this.
Something about hot summer weather gets me to thinking (or melts my brain) and brings some strange recipes to the surface. Remember last year’s Blueberry Ice Cream with Homemade Hot Fudge? Yea… I got a few strange looks for that too.
Because I still see those raised eyebrows on your face, let me tell you a little about this beast of a cake. Believe me, I was super skeptical too.
The vegan chocolate cake is dense and moist, and everything you might want from a chocolate cake minus the eggs and butter. The fat in the cake is almond oil (or anything you have on hand) and one whole mashed avocado. It’s lovely, and I didn’t taste a lick of avocado in the cake.
The avocado buttercream is a dash more strange. Yes, it’s bright green. Yes, the only fat in the buttercream is avocado meat. It’s sweet with slight hints of citrus. I had my doubts, but when combined with the chocolate cake… holy wow! It actually worked! It was honest-to-goodness delicious! Not to mention vegan and full of healthy fats!
Your thoughts? Have I scared you off?
Vegan Chocolate Cake with Avocado
makes 2 8-inch rounds or 2 thinner 9-inch rounds
from Vegetarian in the Middle East
3 cups all-purpose flour
6 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil (I used almond oil)
1/2 cup soft avocado, well mashed, about 1 medium avocado
2 cups water
2 Tablespoons white vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 8 or 9-inch rounds. Set aside.
Sift together all of the dry ingredients except the sugar. Set that aside too.
Mix all the wet ingredients together in a bowl, including the super mashed avocado.
Add sugar into the wet mix and stir.
Mix the wet with the dry all at once, and beat with a whisk (by hand) until smooth.
Pour batter into a greased cake tins. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Let cakes cool in pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto cooling racks to cool completely before frosting with avocado buttercream.
Avocado Buttercream Frosting
from Alton Brown
8 ounces of avocado meat, about 2 small to medium, very ripe avocados
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 pound powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Peel and pit the soft avocados. It’s important to use the ripest avocados you can get your hands on. If the avocados have brown spots in the meat, avoid those spots when you scoop the meat into the bowl.
Place the avocado meat into the bowl of a stand mixer fit with the whisk attachment. Add lemon juice and whisk the avocado on medium speed, until slightly lightened in color and smooth, about 2-3 minutes.
Add the powdered sugar a little at a time and beat. Add vanilla extract until combined. If not using right away, store in the refrigerator. Don’t worry. It won’t turn brown!
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This is phenomenal!! I made this last night and brought it in the work for a birthday. It stayed just fine in my basement over night and actually seemed to firm up a bit. I frosted it a bit warm and it still turned out late. I made a snowflakeish design on top with chocolate chips to liven it up. My frosting turned out much darker green then the photo and a bit thinner, but still delicious. How did you get your frosting to be so light green?
I too think I may try an avocado cream cheese frosting down the road.
Oops…above, I meant it still turned out “great” when frosted warm. Cake update- I wasn’t sure how the cake would go over at work, but it was gone by noon!
made it and LOVE IT.
my love of chocolate and avocados, combined!
does this count as healthy now? :P
Oh I just made it !! lovely!! http://sweesan.blogspot.com/2009/08/oh-what-joy-to-bake.html
I told my mom about this recipe, and she made it for a family party last night! It was actually really, really good. The cake was quite dense and didn’t taste much different from a regular chocolate cake, but the frosting was a bit more unusual tasting. And the colors… oh my were they lovely! My leftover slice was looking a bit iffy this morning, though. I’m thinking it should have gone in the fridge. :/ Thanks, Joy!
this cake was heavenly but how did you make it look that good?!
ohmygosh.
i am a REALLY new baker, and i’ve already baked two of your recipes, have seriously LOVED them, and am so excited and am going to the store tomorrow with my mom to buy more ingredients to make more! i’m 16, and reading your recipes and thoughts is so exciting, and baking with you is the best! thanks a bunch Joy!
:]
I made this cake. I think I messed up the frosting, because it turned out soooo thick and pasty. I think I accidentally put in twice as much powdered sugar. Oops! Unfortunately the frosting made the whole thing… not so good, so the poor cake didn’t even get to be enjoyed. Maaaaybe I’ll try it again.
I made this for my sad vegan friend and it made her happy again.
Thank-you Joy :D
Hey, I tried this recipe and it was seriously extremely delicious! I made it for a little boy that I babysit who is allergic to milk and eggs (how sad), anyway, thanks for sharing this!!
I’ll have to keep this in mind for my mom’s birthday. It’s got 2 of her fave things – chocolate and avocado!
I just made two of these cakes, one for my mother in law and one for me. They tasted lovely. The icing came out a bit thin but the cake is moist and full of flavour. I didn’t know you could make such a great cake without eggs. Yummy!
I have to make this, not because I am thinking HOLY COW THIS LOOKS DELICIOUS, more because I am thinking there are so many things that seem wrong with this I have to find out for myself. The recipe has been booked marked and I will be trying it in the near future.
This cake is delicious!!! to be honest i wasnt sure at first about doing it…but then i remenbered how good were all the other recipes i have made from you. It was great…even my husband who hates avocados said it was great. Thanks Joy.
This was great! I used this recipe for a recent family birthday gathering with vegans, vegetarians and meat eaters. The cake itself was fantastic and the icing was really good too. I had to make a little extra icing because my cake just didn’t look as pretty and artsy as the picture and it needed to be iced all over. Make sure to use vanilla extract for the icing. I had just run out and used almond extract instead and the icing tasted just like kiwi fruit, which was good, but a little weird. But when I made the extra icing I had vanilla extract and that made it taste just like vanilla icing! The cake and icing got rave reviews from about 14 people.
Ooooh, I bookmarked this the moment I saw it; just getting to writing a comment now. But, I love avocado in sweet applications. In fact, I prefer them that way! So yeah, big-time drool on this one! Am not really a baker but one of these days, I’ll get around to making this. =)
(BTW, your picnic looked super fun!)
could i make these into cupcakes? I love the idea, i mean chocolate and avocado are two of my favorite things.
I made a half-recipe of this for my grandparents over the weekend and we all really liked it. The texture of the cake came out to something reminiscent of banana or zucchini bread, that moist denseness. It was very good. The avocados I was able to buy weren’t quite ripe enough for the “buttercream,” though… It tasted a little underripe and didn’t cream very well. I think with very ripe fruit, as called for, it would be a success. It was something different that the grandparents especially appreciated. Thanks :)
oh my gosh, this is so weird and cool. my mom is going to go crazy when i give her a slice of this!
I needed a cake for a potluck and knew you would have the perfect thing. Yes, I made this cake for unsuspecting friends and had them guess what was in it. Nobody could. Some thought that the frosting tasted like kiwi or banana but no one figured it out. The whole thing turned out perfectly and looked just like your photos… I love that! The cake looks more chocolate-y than it tastes, so I would love to find a way to get more chocolate in there. Everyone was impressed though, and there was none left at the end of the evening… so thank you for once again making me look good! You rock!
Comments/suggestions on substituting dark chocolate cocoa powder for the unsweetened cocoa powder??
you know… i’m pretty sure that i just used unsweetened cocoa powder for this recipe. the dark chocolate part is confusing and misleading… sorry about that. unsweetened cocoa powder is the way to go!
Help!
could someone suggest what I can use instead of avocato in the cake batter?? I can’t get avocado :( but I desperately want to bake this cake! :( maybe some other fruit?? help please ;(
thank to those who’ll try to give me a hand
Dear Serena,
try this recipe for a vegan chocolate cake..
3 cups all porpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
2 tea spoons baking soda
1 tea spoon salt
2/3 cup natural unsweetend cocao powder
2 cups room tempreture water
2/3 canola oil
2 table spoons vinegar
1 table spoon vanilla extract
heat the oven to 350 degree. spray 2, 9 inch cake pans and line with parchment paper. wisk the dry ingredients and set a side. wisk the wet ingredients then wisk the wet ingredients in the dry ingredients by hand. devid the batter and bake for 30min.
As the parent of a budding vegan, this looks like it just might do the trick for her sweet tooth!
I was slightly dubious at first, but this actually sounds lush. May have to try it..
What a recipe. Turned out exactly the way I wanted. Never imagined that I would get to eat a cake that is completely vegan! Thanks for posting this recipe
This is defiantly on my to-do list! What a beautiful cake :)
Do you think this recipe could be translated into cupcakes? I really want to use this for a birthday party!
Spotted your recipe on Twitter and it sounds so zany that it captured my attention. Always on the look out for good, wholesome recipes for our Bed and Breakfast (Limousin, France) – even if not exactly tradtional Limousin cuisine!! Will definately give it a go. Love your photographs. Did you take them yourself. Food photog not easy.
This has got to be the best chocolate cake I`ve EVER tasted. I was so skeptical of trying it at first, but I`ve got to thank you Joy for such a wonderful recipe! It was so refreshingly different. Thanks again! :)
So, I made this cake for two Super Bowl parties we attended last night. Everyone loved it! The cake is super moist and very chocolaty. The icing IS sweet, but a beautiful color and consistency. I put the tiny bit of leftover cake in the fridge last night and had it for breakfast this morning… the icing was still a pretty green! Thank you, Joy, for a fun and delicious recipe.
A girl in my lab just served us this delicious cake; I’ve hidden an extra piece to bring home and can’t wait for an excuse to bake it myself! Not too sweet, perfectly moist and rich. Plus, the frosting makes it super fun and modern.
I made half the recipe and made cupcakes instead, turned out great! Delicious! I still haven’t gotten around to making the icing and since I’m stuck inside with this blizzard in md I might try making the cupcakes again but replace the sugar with some applesauce instead.
Hi everybody! I’m Simona and I’ve just discovered this food blog! I love cookies and sweet food… I will try to cook that cake!
bye!
I made this cake a week or so ago for some vegan friends of mine I had over for dinner. It was very easy, and my friends LOVED it! Even the rest of the non-vegan eaters liked it. I love the fact that I’m still getting some nutrition from the fruit (avocado).
I have some family members who made some faces when I mentioned I was making this cake, however, if I could hide the green in the frosting, I don’t think they would’ve figured out it was avocado…it’s that good!
P.S. My kids liked it so it must be pretty good!!!
hey! thanks for the realllly inspiring recipe, i can’t wait to hop to the kitchen to make this.
am sure you get a heap of comments, though, and would be so grateful to receive a reply. what would be the effect of substituting the water in the recipe for milk? thankss heaps.
I have this in the oven right now. The batter was so delicious, I was eating it by the spoonful! I’m sure the cake will be great!
What a great recipe!!!
I had girl friends over tonight for dinner, I was in charge of dessert. I used your recipe and made cupcakes! They were a hit, my friends (the ones eat like rabbits) were eating seconds!
was going to make cupcakes too, any suggestions for baking time? thanks!
for cupcakes, keep an eye on the cupcakes after about 14 minutes.
This Southwest girl has never heard of avocado buttercream, ever! I was almost afraid to look!
If I replaced the water with almond milk would the cake still work out?
i bet it would totally work with almond milk instead of water. go for it!
Wow, you are amazing. I love looking at your site all the time. It makes me so happy.
I’m going to try this recipe soon enough, hopefully tonight.
I just made this the other day. I used a little more than a cupful of agave nectar in place of the granulated sugar in the cake. It wasn’t as sweet as probably most would like, but the sweetness of the icing (which i halved) totally made up for it. But it was so delicious. So moist. Thank you for a great recipe!
I’ve been looking at this recipe for months now, but my poor college bank account never allowed me to buy avocados…that all changed when they were finally on sale! And Joy this cake was absolutely D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S! My family kept taking seconds and thirds…looks like I’m going to have to make this one again :)
You can substitute pureed pumpkin for the avocados and it turns our beautifully and DELISH!
is it possible to replace some or all of the all purpose flour with wholewheat flour? i’ve got 2 small avocadoes waiting to be used! :) can’t wait to try this.
hmm. I was totally enticed by the *idea* of this. I liked the cake a lot – a nice vegan cupcake with proper cupcake texture. As far as the frosting? I’m not in love. It’s not inedible, but it just tastes like what it says on the tin and I think I had expected some sort of avocado alchemy. Maybe I would prefer it with a cake that was a bit darker and more intense than this delightful little cake.
I found this recipe and it sounded so disgusting I knew I just had to make it. Besides, I figured zucchini chocolate cake is delicious, beet and chocolate cake is tasty, so surely avocado cake will follow suit. And it was! It was one of the moistest and densest chocolate cakes I’ve ever eaten, and I only ever tasted a hint of avocado if I came across a lump that I hadn’t mashed thoroughly enough.
The icing, however, didn’t live up to the cake. I like avocado, and I was ready for the icing to be a little weird, but mine tasted like pure confectioner’s sugar. I ended up scraping most of it off. Oh well :) It was worth trying, especially since I ended up with a great cake recipe!
This receipe came out beautiful! While I really had my doubts about it the cake was moist, dense and the Avocado Buttercream was delicious. Everyone was blown away by it. We decided the taste was something similar to a Kiwi. I was amazed at how perfect my layers were. I should be this lucky with my butter/eggs/cream cakes! I loved it and thank you for thinking outside the box. I look forward to trying your other offerings and thank you for a beautiful page.
My nieces are vegan. I will definitely have to make this cake for them. They will be thrilled. It sounds yummy!
This cake is absolutely JOY-ous!
Thank you so much for this recipe. The cake is fabulous. The icing is stranger texture its more gelatinous and the avocado is apparent through the taste. Its not my favorite but its not bad. However the combination is tasty. My husband approved. I’m hoping my young boys will enjoy this healthier option to sweets around the house.
Okay, i’m sold. I’ll make this later tonight. Thank you for bringing this fabulous recipe to all of us food-blogger addicts.
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