Vegan Dinner: Birthday Edition [Chocolate Avocado Cake]

Last Tuesday was my friend Amanda's birthday and her one request from me was a vegan birthday cake...oh, and to go out with her to celebrate!

I was beyond excited to take a crack at a full out vegan cake AND I was really honored that she asked me. She knows I love baking! The question was what cake to make?! Its easy enough to make a "normal" vegan cake (i.e., with no strange ingredients), but I wanted to challenge myself.

Hello again, avocado!

A quick glance at my 2012 Food Goals confirmed my decision: an avocado dessert was in order. I went with Joy the Baker's vegan chocolate avocado cake. I totally aspire to be her one day; I adore her blog and recipes :)

Because I was making the cake to share with non-vegans, Amanda and I decided it would be safer to go with store-bought frosting for the cake--did you know a lot of the store-bought varieties have no animal products in it? Cool, but kind of disappointing, right?

For our "samples" we decided to try Joy's avocado frosting...and thank goodness we decided to just sample it. The texture was beyond bizarre. It was gummy and slimy, rather than creamy. I admit, maybe I made it wrong, but I rather not waste another avocado trying to figure it out.

The cake, on the other hand, was right on point. It was dense and moist and chocolatety, with a slight "earthy" tone (nothing gross though). I'm actually guilty of consuming more cake than beverages while we were out celebrating for 4 hours.

Since I don't make cakes often, I took this opportunity to decorate it by using an awesome technique I pinned from Sockerrus. Annie's Eats also has a tutorial (in english) which is appropriately named "How to frost a fluffy cloud cake". I only decorated the top because I was tight on time and, considering the cake's short stature, I thought it would be more appreciated than the sides. It was so easy...and I am in love with it.

I know, I know. I wish I had better pictures, as these don't quite do the thing justice. I'm actually going to start researching "real" cameras, so please leave a comment if you have any suggestions! Preferably, budget-friendly options, if there is such a thing for cameras :)

Chocolate Avocado Cake

Found on Joy the Baker

Servings: 1 8-9 inch cake

Visit the above link to view the recipe.