Almost Vegan Avocado Chocolate Nutella Cupcakes

It all started with a bag of ripe avocados from Costco. I had originally purchased them to spread on my paninis. And I had, but then forgot about them until my mother pointed out that if I didn't use them fast, they'd be headed for the bin. What to do with 3 medium, ripe avocados? Why, try my hand at making a vegan cupcake of course! 

I was inspired by Joy the Baker's recipe, but didn't want to spend the amount of time trying from scratch.  My first attempt involved mixing 1/2 a cup of blended avocado, vinegar and baking soda (egg substitute), and substituting the dry ingredients in the recipe with Ghirardelli Brownie Mix (also had some left over from Costco which I was trying to use) and tweaking here and there. I found out that vinegar and baking soda serves as an egg substitute. 1 tbspn to 1 tspn baking soda is equivalent to 1 egg. They turned out not like cupcakes, but as cake-like brownies. The addition of avocado was not as moist as I would have thought (I've turned same brownie mix into moist fluffy cake with bananas before).

Attempt #1

 I reserved another 1/2 cup of avocado to add to my favorite dressing in the fridge, a lemon tahini dressing from People's Pint. The remaining avocado, about 1 cup, I folded in a medium bowl with about 1 cup of Nutella. I was attempting to make a frosting, and added about 8 oz of melted semi-sweet chocolate. The result was slightly dry and grainy, but adding about 1/4 cup of soy milk made the frosting nice and smooth. However, I decided to transform the frosting into a from scratch cake batter since the first attempt at vegan baking did not work out. The second attempt turned out much better, but does not match up to a non-vegan chocolate cake in taste. I will continue to experiment in the future until I find a satisfactory substitution.

Attempt #2

Almost Vegan Avocado Chocolate Nutella Cupcakes

Yields 24 cupcakes; Prep Time: 30 min; Cook Time: 30 min

Ingredients:

1 medium avocado, blended

1-cup soymilk

1 cup Nutella

1-cup vegetable oil

8 oz semisweet chocolate

3-tablespoon white vinegar

3-teaspoon baking soda

2-teaspoon baking powder

1-tablespoon salt

½ cup sugar

2 cups of flour

Directions:

1.     Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F, line or grease two 12-cup cupcake pans

2.     Blend 1 medium avocado until smooth. Fold into 1 cup Nutella in medium bowl

3.     Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a simmering pan of water

4.     Fold the avocado and Nutella mixture into the melted chocolate, and add the sugar.

5.     Fold ½ the remaining wet ingredients, oil and soy milk into the chocolate mixture. Then fold the vinegar in.

6.     Gently fold the dry ingredients (sifted in another bowl) into the wet mixture.

7.     Add remaining wet ingredients to batter. If the batter is too dry for you, add a little more soy milk

8.     Scoop into lined/greased cupcake pans. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 30 minutes.

The additional 2 tspns of baking powder make the batter lighter and fluffier since we can’t use normal ingredients like egg whites, buttermilk, or sour cream. The soymilk also serves as a substitute for those ingredients as well, making sure that the batter isn’t too dry. We gently fold all the ingredients in because we don’t want to risk over mixing or deflating the batter.  

* I found out from a friend that Nutella isn't vegan after all, so these have become the almost-vegan chocolate nutella cupcake. To make an entirely vegan version of this recipe, substitute Nutella with vegan nutella (recipe linked).