Glazed Chocolate-Avocado Cupcakes

Glazed Chocolate-Avocado Cupcakes
 
Recipe from Vegetarian Times

Notes: I bookmarked this recipe a few years ago, not sure when I would have an occasion to make them. It is egg-less and dairy-free, but we don't have any close friends or family with those restrictions. For Gabe's birthday today, we thought it would be a fun idea to celebrate with mini-cupcakes at his daycare class. It turns out that to meet all the dietary restrictions of the different preschoolers, we needed to ensure any baked good did not have eggs, nuts or red food colouring.

As no one was allergic to dairy, I used regular milk instead of soy milk. To get a yield of at least 30 mini-cupcakes, I decided to play it safe and make a double batch of this recipe. There was no way my food processor would handle 4 cups of liquid plus two avocados without spilling, so I just pureed the avocado with the milk, then stirred in the other liquids. Baking two dozen mini-cupcakes at a time, they were done in 18 minutes at 350°F. After another batch of 24 minis, I had enough extra batter to get 6 regular-sized cupcakes (which took almost 30 minutes to bake through).

For the frosting, I didn't like the sound of the silken tofu, vegan chocolate icing, and made a plain ganache instead. I heated 1 cup of heavy cream, then poured it over about 9 oz of chopped bittersweet chocolate. When it was starting to thicken, I dipped the tops of each cupcake in the frosting, and let it set at room temperature.

And what did 25 out of 25 toddlers think? Delicious, of course! I found the avocado taste to be (almost) undetectable, and the cupcakes were tender and moist, without being too sweet, despite all of that maple syrup.

Cupcakes for Everyone!

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