I’m not the world’s greatest chocolate fan, but some of my loved ones are. We had a few birthday celebrations recently and chocolate cake was on the birthday cake wish list. Normally, I’d use butter and a double cream in my chocolate cake recipe, but not this time!

If someone had told me I’d be baking cakes with avocado a couple of years ago, I probably would have laughed in their face. However, a few beautiful friends have helped me discover the wonder of vegetables in baking and now I know just how great they can be in desserts. For this recipe, I replaced the dairy fats with avocado and not only is this a delicious, decadent (and moist) chocolate cake, it’s also packed with nutrients.

Avocado has plenty of vitamins, more potassium than a banana and is high in fibre. It’s also full of heart-healthy monounsaturated fatty acids. When you wrap your gums around a slice of this cake, you’d never guess it was low in sugar, low in fat, and you cannot taste the avocado at all!

Serves 8-10

Ingredients

FOR FROSTING

• 1 avocado
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1/4 cup cacao powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

FOR CAKE

• 1 1/2 cup spelt flour
• 1/2 cup cacao powder
• 1 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 100g almond meal
• 1 cup coconut sugar
• 1 avocado
• 1 cup unsweetened Greek yoghurt
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup macadamia oil

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a 20cm springform cake pan and line base with baking paper.
2. Sift spelt flour, cacao powder and bicarbonate of soda together into a bowl. Stir in almond meal and coconut sugar.
3. Scoop avocado flesh into a food processor with yoghurt, vanilla and macadamia oil and process until smooth. Add avocado mixture to dry ingredients and stir until well combined.
4. Transfer mixture to the prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Remove from oven and cool in pan for 10 minutes. Remove from pan, transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.
5. For the frosting, scoop avocado flesh into a food processor. Add icing sugar, cacao powder and vanilla extract, then process until smooth and creamy. Spread frosting over the cooled cake to serve.