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 cake turned out great. So delicious! Thanks for the recipe.
awesome!!
Joy, I just wanted to let you know that I tried this and your farro + summer veggie salad today, and both turned out amazing. I have a gigantic friend crush on you. Thanks for the great recipes!
this is truly unique recipe, i too love using avocados in sweets. check this out : http://chefshauniece.com/?p=548
It’s awesome but I have a question: why it’s bitter? It’s not sweet at all, the cake has bitter after-taste. Really don’t know why :(
This cake looks incredible!
I’m only just becoming vegan, though this is the second time and in the past 12 months I’ve really found cake making to find a big place in my heart.. and stomach. I was disappointed at first, thinking there wouldn’t be many good quality chocolate cakes that were also healthy.. but this seems to be it! I’m in year 12 at the moment doing food technology, my theme for the year is chocolate and I have to make a royal chocolate cake for a ‘birthday’, this might be the winning cake!
Beautiful, quirky recipe! I just made the cake (halved the recipe), its moist and chocolatey and I don’t feel guilty because there’s no butter! The avocado icing is very green and delicious. Thank you so much it’s amazing!
hey, this looks really good! I made the batter as cupcakes, and used soy milk instead of water and replaced apple sauce for the oil, and the muffins were still wet inside and very hard on the outside…HELP!
Well….. you didn’t use the recipe I provided… at all. So, I have no idea.
I want to make this sooo bad! I have 2 birthday’s on Friday and I was thinking about doing cupcakes instead of a cake. I will follow the recipe to an exact measurement since i am extremely anal, but do we think it will be as good?
haha
Salima – i havent made this recipe, but i do use tons of regular recipes and always make subsitutions because my daughter is lactose/whey/gluten/cane sugar allergic. ANYWAYS, just by looking at what you said you did… my guess would be its the soy milk. In my experience soy milk makes baked goods brown quickly and harden. I would use almond or rice milk, or if you do use soy, try lowering the bake temp and extending bake time. Hope it helps!
holy crap. i’m making this for breakfast; just maybe. and if a gf version works for the cake, it will be baby’s first birthday cake. see how much faith i have in you?
p.s. nice advice for comment 241, classic.
nice recipe thanks for sharing it
Hi Joy. I tried this recipe a couple of weeks back and was blown away by the texture and the flavour of the cake. Especially the texture. So moist and soft and rich. Oh my. Thanks much for your ideas. Love your blog!!!
Hi Joy! Is it possible to omit the chocolate in the recipe? My friend is allergic to dark chocolate :S
I just put this in the oven, can’t wait to see how it turns out!
but I didn’t have any avocado to hand, so I had to use beetroot instead, hopefully it will still sorta work, ha!
thanks for sharing the recipe :D
I love everything cake related and a close second is anything containing avocado; I almost could not believe this post! I cannot wait to try this. Thanks for the post, I would love to see some more unique avocado recipes just like this!
Best cake ever!
I wonder how this would turn out layered, with little people on top…
That cake looks gorgeous! Everything about it sounds amazing and visually I love the look of the green and brown together! You are full of awesome ideas! thanks for sharing!
Made this a week or 2 ago at work after we had a build up of ripe avocados. It is AMAZING! Everyone that tried some LOVED it. Am now about to make it for my mums birthday cake, thank you so much for the recipe :oD
Joy! I love your site, and I made this cake today for all my fellow Firefighters to celebrate my birthday! They have NO idea what it’s made of, and it tastes AMAZING! Keep doing what you do. Your enthusiasm is contagious!
I made the cake with whole wheat pastry flour and zylitol and when 3 avocados didn’t give me enough for mix for the cake, I added a pear to help and threw in a little more canola oil to make up for the drying effect of zylitol. Turned out delicious. I could of beat the zylitol into powdered sugar a little finer but smoothed some of it out with agave nectar. I’m loving the sugar free version.
I tried making this but I used beets in place of avocados, Splenda in place of sugar, carob in place of chocolate, and gluten-free rice flour. Also I used corn starch instead of baking powder, and Sprite instead of baking soda. Also instead of cooking at 350 for 40 minutes I cooked it at 700 for 20 minutes. Anyway, it tastes weird. What should I do?
Um.
Jokes. I like em.
Avocados? Cake? My mind can’t understand this, but my tastebuds can. I made this (reluctantly) with a healthy dose of intrigue. I tasted it, I loved it! I had it again for breakfast the next day.
I halved the recipe and made w/ 6″ rounds bc they are the only cake pans I own. I also oiled the pans and dusted w a mixture of flour and cocoa powder. Turned out perfectly!
I took a sample to some girlfriends, under the guise of “Shamrock cake”, as I didn’t want to let the vegan cat out of the bag pre-review.
All parties raved…literally…with glow sticks.
Nice work J.
I am making this cake right now :)
My husband and I just got back from a vacation in Costa Rica where we had chocolate-avocado ice cream, and I found your website as I was Googling for similar recipes. The batter tastes wonderful, I’m sure the cake will too. Thanks so much for putting this up here! I will definitely be looking for more ideas on your website.
P.S.- is there a reason you don’t have a ‘frosting’ heading in your recipe index??
I just finished making this cake for my own birthday tomorrow, and as I type this, I’m eating the leftover crumbs out of the pan. So, seriously, this cake is amazing. I really appreciate recipes like this, because not only do I not use animal products, I really strive to not simply “replace” them with things like margarine.
Horray! And thanks again for the recipe; you’ve inadvertently given me a wonderful birthday present.
I made this cake for my sister’s birthday, but I didn’t immediately tell her what the secret ingredient was. She was shocked, amazed, and delighted. I will say though, that about halfway through the process when you’ve mixed the wet ingredients together… The color of that fluid…. Yikes. I almost lost my nerve right then.
Totally worth it though! It’s so rich, it doesn’t take a ton of cake to be fulfilling.
Could you make the icing chocolate too? I’m guessing just add cocoa powder until it tastes right…
This looks amazing, can’t wait to make it!
Thank you joy!
Joy, do we really need the white vinegar in the recipe?
Question. My family does a cherry almond birthday cake as a tradition adding almond extract and of course cherries. I’m looking for a vegan chocolate cake to use (hate box mixes) and am wondering if this recipe would work well? Thanks!
i think this recipe would be delicious with cherries and almond extract! do it!
Avocado in sweets? Not such a weird thing where I grew up. When I was a wee child, my mum (your namesake) used to eat avocados with iced sweetened milk (evaporated in her case). As for your avocado cake, it sounds like a guiltless treat and a great way to get good fats in one’s diet. I had an epiphany the other day to use avocado as an egg sub, so online I went to do my research and, voila, the answer has been here all this time! I love Google for leading me to you. Now, if avocados weren’t so effin expensive (they’re almost $3 each here in the UK)!
This looks FANTASTIC. Licking the bowl was wonderful : great complex chocolate taste.
Just about to get that wonderful frosting made. (LOVE the colour combination).
Hey Joy! I just made this recipe today and my word! the texture of the cake was amazing! The only tweaks were that i used 1 2/3 cups of sugar and 1/4 cup of honey because i ran out sugar (yes omg the horror) and added a tsp of brandy to the batter. YUM
but I must say the frosting was a little too sweet to my liking. I might just even halve the amount of sugar hahaha. But the cake was awesome! I upped the amount of cocoa powder just a littleee more.. I think just a difference of a tbsp. And what is more the bright green icing and the deep dark chocolate cake reminds me of Wicked. Perfect for the halloween season! (even though my family does not celebrate halloween but what the heck) hahaha!
i only have one word to describe this cake: awsome-diddly ^.^
I wanted to try this after watching the documentary “Go Further”, which is a must see! This cake came out amazing! I plan on making this as the dessert for my family Christmas dinner. Thank you for posting this recipe!!!
My baby (just turned 1) has food allergies- allergic to dairy, eggs and peanuts so I wanted to find a yummy birthday cake he could eat. This was it! Seriously, so good. I hate the word moist- but this cake was super moist and yummy and I love avocado- but there is no avocado flavor in this cake. My family of 20 did not know and I told them afterwards and they were shocked. I made the frosting but only frosted a little cake for my 1 year old with it as I must have done something wrong b/c it wasn’t as thick or set as frosting needs to be- it was really good frosting just not as spreadable, more liquidy. I will be trying it again to get it right!! I also loved that the green color of the frosting was all natural!! Thanks so much for the recipe!!
Joy – Just made this as cupcakes, and had a blast with it. It’s my first time on this site and I am so excited to have a kindred baking spirit. I am a bake-a-holic, and my addiction is fueled by the fact I had to go gluten and dairy free a few years ago, so I got to learn to bake ALL OVER again! There are so many things I can’t wait to try! So pleased to meet you!! :D
PS – love the people that don’t follow the recipe AT ALL and then ask you for advice. HA!
This cake looks so yummy! My mouth is watering, I wanna make it so badly but I’m I little bit scared about the avocado frosting
This cake looks insanely delicious, I cannot wait to make it, thank-you so much for posting it! Do you think it would still be moist if I substituted applesauce for the oil? Apologises if this has already been asked :)
This recipe is great, just great! I used whole wheat pastry flour (instead of AP) and sucanat (instead of granulated sugar). The moistness, chocolate-yness (made up word alert), and sweetness are perfect. The lemon in the frosting really complements the chocolate cake. And the whole thing just looks so unique with the green!!
My dad was mid-bite when I told him there was avocado in it. He seemed disturbed for a second, but then plowed on, commenting that “chocolate just makes anything taste good”. Ha!
I am going to attempt this tonight with adzuki bean puree in place of avocado. I have no idea if that is a suitable substitution or not, but I’m up for the adventure! Thank you for posting this extraordinary recipe. Based on the reviews, it is a winner!
:)
PS- If my zany idea goes wrong it is of course your fault. (J/K)
I looked everywhere for a recipe that i could use for my baby’s first birthday (severe dairy allergies) but the adults will still eat too
she LOVES this cake (I made it for a smash cake for a photoshoot). The cupcakes were harder to time (had to check them a lot) but they still turned out fantastic. and the icing is perfect for a frog. Thank you
Wow! This is a really perfect cake! Both avocado and chocolate are my favorite.
Absolutely loved making this cake! So easy, no butter or eggs involved. Turns out so pretty with the green frosting (I used only 1/4 lb of powdered sugar for my taste)! This one’s a keeper forever. Thanks a lot for the recipe, Joy!
This turned out fantastic – and easy too! I can attest that this recipe works well at high altitude, better than most cakes. I made this for a co-worker’s birthday and it was a huge hit. I added a 1/2 cup of sliced almonds to the batter (she loves almonds), as well as 2 tbsps. of cocoa powder to the frosting (the green just didn’t quite seem appetizing to me and added extra chocolately goodness). Thanks so much for sharing this!
Just made this.. turned out fab! I got a bit funky with the icing and added some cocoa and a bit of coffee (definitely too addicted to chocolate) and I’m excited to give it to my vegan friend for his birthday. Thanks so much!
I’ve been waiting to make this cake for ages, and now I have the perfect opportunity. This woman my mom works with has a son who is allergic to everything. A little boy that is vegan, and not by choice. What could possibly be better than a chocolate cake with green frosting? I can’t wait. :D
Joy, the combination of avocado with chocolate is a classic one in Indonesia. In fact, we only use avocado as desserts (chilled avocado juice with palm sugar syrup or chocolate sauce is a traditional favourite). I have trouble convincing my husband and friends in the uk of the combination but this cake might just do the trick!
I made this, only as cupcakes instead of a cake. But then I got tired of baking, so I threw some chocolate chips in the batter and made some late-night pancakes out of the rest. It was a “what would Joy do” moment.
you’re a hero in my eyes. seriously.
I just made this. The cakes are cooling as we speak, but I made the icing and it is the prettiest shade of green ever. The picture doesn’t do it justice! I made the cake to your directions, but I don’t have a mixer so I used my blender to make the icing instead and just used the whip setting. It came out perfectly.
Thank you for this amazing recipe! :) I’m beginning to bake all of my dessert and such vegan-style and this is definitely a keeper!
Baby has a dairy and soy allergy so on the hunt for the perfect birthday cake, I found this. Tested it last night and it is just PERFECT! Wouldn’t even know it was vegan. Love that it doesn’t have a bunch of strange substitutions. Gave baby a taste test, she LOVED it. Gobbled the whole thing up. Now we have the perfect cake for her first birthday. Thank you!
I made this avocado frosting last year for my son’s birthday. It was delicious! And, more importantly, it was the perfect shade of green to make my cupcakes into Oscar the Grouch cupcakes! They looked AWESOME!!! I put it on lemon cake, since it was midsummer, but I’d definitely use it on this lovely looking chocolate cake.
The cakes are cooling as we speak,This cake looks insanely delicious, I cannot wait to make it..
Wooo I totally made this! I’d been meaning to for aaages. There was something *different* about it.. I think there was a hint of avocado, but it was nevertheless divine! Expecially the frosting, which I loved. Don’t make it too big – I cooked too much at once and it was eternally doughy in the middle, no matter how long it was in for. :(
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