Vegan Chocolate Avocado Cake

As I mentioned before, I came across a recipe for Vegan Chocolate Avocado Cake, and it sounded so bizarre I had to try it (not to mention it looked delicious in the pictures).  So last night, when I probably should have been going to bed because I had to work this morning, I baked cupcakes!

The recipe and directions are all in the link.  The only difference is rather than putting the batter in cake pans, I put it into cupcake liners.  And yes, those are gingerbread men and candy canes on the liner.  Apparently I used all of my plain cupcake liners for my wolf cupcakes earlier this year, and these were all I had  :)  I baked them at the same temperature, and I believe I started with 15 minutes, checked them and cooked them another 2, then they were done after another 2.  So 19 minutes total with 2 pans of 12 side by side in the oven.  Yes, that's right, it made 2 dozen cupcakes!

The icing was really easy to make, it had the same consistency and texture as normal icing, and it turned out a really fun Ghostbusters slime green!  I was a little worried though because it tasted like avocado.

Overall the cupcakes were really good!  Me and a guest taster both agreed that they were a little better the next day.  For some reason the avocado taste in the icing wasn't as noticeable after sitting over night.  I brought some to work and made everyone try them.  They seemed to like them, and weren't too freaked out that it was avocado or vegan.  I made my guest taster take some to a class they go to on Monday night since there was no way I was going to be able to eat all 24 of them, so I'll let you know what the reaction to them there was.

Next baking experiment (after all of these are finally eaten and I'm no longer sick of chocolate cake) may be a cake made with the chocolate stout beer I have in my fridge.  I'm not sure what the next dinner will be.  I do have a butternut squash in my cupboard and some ricotta cheese.  If you read my squash blog, I mentioned I wanted to experiment with other flavors but keeping it along the same lines as the recipe I used.  So I may be doing that later this week.  Also, I'm still impressed with my vegetable Wellington.  Here's the piece I warmed up in the oven for dinner tonight:

It held it's shape, the crust was crisp and flaky after warming, and it still tasted great.  Nom nom nom!