Simply Chocolate Avocado Butter.

I’ve thought quite a bit about what I might call this.  Avocella (like Nutella, but with avocado). Cocoa avocado crema (Alice Waters style). Or perhaps avocat et chocolat (poorly translated French).  

All of this in an attempt to convince you that I have not lost it.  

I am normally not one for messing with dessert. Particularly when there is chocolate involved.  But I am also a firm believer that everyone has the right to cake.  And sometimes people have food allergies.

In fact, I work with a population of patients that have very, very severe allergies.  Are you ready for this?  No soy.  No wheat.  No dairy.  No eggs.  No nuts.  No corn.  No fish.  No shellfish.  No kidding. Try making a gluten-free vegan dessert without the use of nuts or corn, friends.  Welcome to the world of Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE).

So I set out to make a chocolate cake that would essentially be (1) allergen-free and (2) edible.  And, well, it wasn’t terrible.  But it wasn’t something I’d ever like to make again, either.  I brought it to work and a coworker kindly referred to it as brownie slop.  The recipe in its entirety is not worth mentioning here.  Though it could have doubled quite nicely as a chocolate body scrub.

The “frosting,” however, was something that held real promise.  Coworkers were knifing it, scrapping it off the leftover cake and onto their plates.  Which I took as a good sign.  Bad table manners can be a good indicator of great food.

And if you choose to eat this by the spoonful, say, standing in the middle of your kitchen in your bathrobe, you might detect a faint, almost mossy note that could possibly be linked back to avocado.  If you were really looking for it.  That said, I’m the one who made the spread.  I knew precisely what was in it.  I had no problem eating it all by itself.  And getting it on both my chin and my pajamas.  But consider the source.

It worked wonderfully—and much more daintily –on a piece of French bread with a sprinkling of coarse sea salt. And it was equally as enjoyable playing peanut butter’s counterpart, sandwiched between bread slices.

So I settled on chocolate avocado butter for its name because it works very well as both a nut accompaniment and as a substitute for one.  Sure, it can still be used as frosting.  But I believe the role it was born to play is as a silky chocolate spread with the guts to offer up more rewards than risks. In fact, I’ve never felt so good eating chocolate. 

It’s chocolate meant for all.  And all for chocolate.  It tastes good.  And it’s just that simple.

Chocolate Avocado Butter

Ingredients:

1 ripe avocado

~¼-½ unsweetened cocoa powder

~ 2/3-1c powered sugar

Pinch of salt

Splash of vanilla extract

1-2 tbsp leftover coffee (cold)

Instructions:

Puree the flesh of an avocado very well until it lightens in texture in a food processor (this will take a minute or two).  (A blender may also work, just make sure you don't have any avocado chunks left.)  Sift ¼ cup of cocoa powder and 2/3 cup of powdered sugar together in a bowl. Add to the avocado and blend until well combined.  Taste and add more sifted cocoa and powdered sugar to your taste.  (I added quite a bit more.) Add the salt, vanilla, and coffee; blend and retaste.  Adjust as needed.

Makes about 1 cup.

Notes:

-If you have EoE you may want to make sure you find a vanilla extract without a corn-based alcohol, depending on your allergy severity.  (Or you could try making your own with some vanilla beans and a potato vodka, but it would take time before you could put it to use.)  I do think the vanilla helps to meld the avocado, though when I first made the frosting I left it off to make sure it would be edible without the flavoring.  And it certainly was, though I recommend the vanilla if you have the ability to use it.

-This firms up nicely in the fridge but it also remains more spreadable than a frosting would since there isn’t much saturated fat to solidify here.

-The ranges for the cocoa and powdered sugar are key.  I ended up adding in more cocoa powder to deepen the chocolate flavor.  As I added more cocoa I also upped the powdered sugar to around 1 cup, perhaps even a tad more.  Taste as you go.

-Many brands of powdered sugar have a little cornstarch mixed in.  Wholesome sweeteners makes a version without it.  Be sure to check the package's ingredients if you have a corn allergy.

-I almost forgot ... I'm now on twitter!