Work. Work. Work. I’ve been sooooooooo busy.
All of it makes me crave cake, which is actually quite disappointing considering I put myself on a baking restriction. I mean the whole point of it was to learn how to control myself around things that smell like heaven. Whattttttttt.
But come on! You and I both knew that sort of thing wouldn’t last long. I mean did I really expect myself to NOT throw flour around my kitchen for an entire week? I don’t think that’s even possible.
The other day I baked my incredible black bean avocado brownies for my Godson, then pretty much devoured half the pan. Who could blame me? Those things are ridiculously fudgy and packed with healthy things. WIN!
Totally dramatic… I’m aware.
This cake? Same story, different day. Fudgy, rich with chocolate, oh-so-vegan, and made with the one and only avocado.
Just admit that you think I’m totally weird.
(But totally awesome… RIGHT?)
Here’s the funny thing though… I’m not vegan. For some reason, I find that baking vegan is an excuse to get creative in the kitchen and experiment a little bit more. And thank goodness because this cake turned out freaking delicious! Like I actually wouldn’t mind face planting into it.
See what I’m saying?
It’s addicting, moist, and perfect for any occasion. The best part is when you see jaws drop after you explain the vegan part, then tell them you put an avocado in it.
Oh and you could totally make it gluten-free too, by replacing the flour with a gluten-free all-purpose flour!
And finally if you’re wondering why it’s a birthday cake, well that’s because I put sprinkles on it. Everyone knows sprinkles make everything seem like a party.
More vegan dessert recipes to try:
Vegan Dark Chocolate Tofu Cheesecake with Peanut Butter Pretzel Crust
Lemon Blueberry Pistachio Cupcakes (vegan + gluten free!)
Flourless Chocolate Chip Chickpea Blondies {vegan, gluten-free & healthy}
Healthy Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread (Nut Free + Vegan + Gluten Free!)
Homemade Healthy Peanut Butter Cups! (low car, vegan, gluten free)
Ambitious Kitchen
Cookbook
125 Ridiculously Good For You, Sometimes Indulgent, and Absolutely Never Boring Recipes for Every Meal of the Day
Best Ever Vegan Avocado Chocolate Birthday Cake with Vegan Chocolate Ganache
Ingredients
- 3 oz good-quality vegan chocolate
- 2/3 cup freshly brewed coffee
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (or sub gluten free all purpose flour)
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar (or coconut sugar)
- 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar or coconut sugar
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I use Ghiradelli)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup melted and cooled coconut oil (or sub vegan butter or you can also use extra virgin olive oil -- but cake might have a slight olive oil flavor)
- 1/2 large very ripe avocado, mashed
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup light coconut milk (or almond milk)
- 1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips (I get mine at Whole Foods)
- For the vegan ganache:
- 6 oz vegan chocolate, chopped
- 1/4 cup light coconut milk, plus more if necessary
Instructions
- Grease 12-cup bundt cake pan with whatever oil you have on hand. I usually use olive oil. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Place a small saucepan over low heat and add in 3 oz of good-quality vegan chocolate and freshly brewed coffee. Whisk until chocolate is completely melted, then remove from heat and set aside to cool.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, both sugars, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
- In a separate large bowl, beat together mashed avocado, oil, and vanilla extract until smooth. Whisk in cooled chocolate and your milk of choice. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Gently fold in 1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips. Your cake batter should be pretty thick. If it's too thick, add in an extra tablespoon or two of milk.
- Pour batter into prepared bundt pan and smooth top. Bake for 35-45 minutes or until tester inserted into center comes out almost clean, with just a few crumbs attached. Let cool in pan an hour on a wire rack before flipping over and transferring to wire rack to finish cooling completely.
- To make vegan chocolate ganache: In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, add in coconut milk and chopped chocolate. Watch carefully and whisk until chocolate is completely melted. If you want a thinner ganache, add in more coconut milk. Let stand for a few minutes then immediately spoon ganache over cake. Top ganache with sprinkles, more chocolate chips, nuts, or another topping of choice.
- Cut into 12 slices and serve immediately!
This is beyond creative and fabulous looking. All those SPRINKLES for one thing. Mesmerizing!
And then the actual cake with avo in it, and the ganache. I’ve done plenty of desserts with avocado like banana-avo ice cream and raw vegan chocolate avo mousse but this takes the cake. Literally! Pinnnnnned!
The red sprinkles are probably not Vegan! Red #40…
Look really yummy ! And the sprinkles on top of the ganache just make the whole thing even cuter !
This look heavenly!! I bet the avocado makes it taste so rich and smooth! YUM!
This cake is calling my name!!
Avocado in cake? What? If I wasn’t such a fan of the green orb I might be a little afeared. But, not the case. I have to try this.
These cake sounds soooooo amazing! I’m so excited for this recipe and I can’t wait to try it! Pinning this one for sure! BTW…great pics!
Mmmmm, I bet that would be really good with coconut oil!!!
Such beautiful photos! This looks delicious and I think I’ll have to make it on my next birthday!
What’s the calorie info for one slice of cake?
I wouldn’t mind a huge slice of this cake on my birthday, that’s for sure!
This is so moist and chocolaty yummy!!!!
This is creative indeed! 😀 i would definitely love to try making this.
I too am not vegan but like to cook (especially bake) vegan recipes. Can't wait to try this one!
I did a GF version that’s cooking up in the oven right now– I used Jules’ AP GF flour and subbed 1/2 c coconut sugar for the white/brown sugar. I also used coconut milk and coconut oil… so it’s a good thing I like coconut!
I’ve got a pb/cream cheese icing all teed up and just waiiiiiting for the cake to get out of the oven. I hope I can muster up the patience to let it cool properly before icing!
-CK
cookingupkefi.com
Wow sounds awesome. Let me know how it turns out!
Interesting–think I will have to give it a try!
This has to be tried. Sounds lovely!
Yes, and come to my house to make it, I'll help taste test it.
Anyone have any substitutions for coffee? I don’t drink coffee and don’t want to buy coffee that I will only use for a cake. Thank you!
oh yummmm
I made some similar (shape wise) some time ago. Except it is a fruit cake, and it is raw:-)
http://vitalraw.com/?p=131
Looks so good! I just need someone to have a birthday!
I know I have seen the avocado use with Choc cupcakes too. Creamy and yum!
Would almond flour work with this?
I, too, like to veganize baking recipes – but even more: I like to find uses for FL avocados. That wouldn't happen to be what you mean by a large avocado, would it? Or did you mean a large Haas?
This looks awesome, am totally bookmarking it. Just fyi – I used to use Silk brands, but have switched away from them. They are owned by Dean Foods, which owns Hersheys, which refuses not to use slavery chocolate. (They are trying to make it look like they are switching away from that but if you research it you’ll find it’s not really true.) Also I recommend to everyone to stop using organic brands once they sell out to big corporations. It’s the only way to keep big ag out of our food supply. Oh, another thing about Silk, they switched many of their products away from being organic without saying anything. Some of us at the time actually bought horrifying pesticide GMO crap soymilk without knowing it. This company no longer has any integrity. Trader Joe’s unsweetened refrigerated soymilk is actually made by a company called Wildwood which is still a small company with a social conscience and great products. It is mainly owned by another company, but that company has a good track record also. http://www.cornucopia.org/soysurvey/soy_profiles/FarmID_18.html
Substitute for coffee – chickory. It’s awesome and I think it tastes great – some coffee fiends don’t like it but I do and I love coffee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicory
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=a9_sc_1?rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aorganic+chicory+substitute&keywords=organic+chicory+substitute&ie=UTF8&qid=1369883232
I made this tonight, but gluten free (with a mix of brown rice and millet flour) – for our anniversary and it was great. Thanks for such a great and simple recipe.
This cake is amazing! Nom, nom, nom
My birthday is coming up and my mom needed a recipe to make me a cake, this is the one! Watch out though the regular store-bought red sprinkles almost certainly contain RED #40 which we all know is not Vegan.
It worked! http://xtinaluvspink.wordpress.com/2013/06/18/triple-chocolate-secret-ingredient-bundt-cake/
I made this for my sister’s birthday, and even all the non-vegans in the house went crazy for it!
It was completely gone before I knew it, so thanks for an awesome recipe!
(Also, for anyone wondering, this works great in a regular cake pan as well!)
You don't need a specific reason for making cake… right?
cake is always ALWAYS justified 🙂
oh, my, god.
My friend asked me for a dairy-free cake for her birthday, and I’m so glad I took this one! Some of my friends were a bit skeptical at the thought of a vegan cake haha, but it turned out amazing. It is so moist, and tasty (I used some good dark baking chocolate), one of my friends who kind of dislikes desserts actually went for seconds.
I didn’t have any vegan chocolate chips, so I chopped up some chocolate; I’m not sure if it changed anything, but it worked out very well.
The birthday girl was really happy, and so was I! Will try other recipes from this blog, and thanks 😀
So apparently everyone understands what the chocolate is in the recipe, but me. I just made the cake, but am thinking I used the wrong kind. I was assuming it was a baker's chocolate (unsweetened), but I'm thinking not now. Hope the cake is sweet enough. *sigh* Does anyone know what kind of chocolate? Thanks!
I would use either vegan chocolate chips or a vegan chocolate bar (candy) definitely sweetened.
This is so gorgeous! And so creative! Will you make this for me for my birthday pretty please? 🙂
I shared this cake with everyone I KNOW. I've told everyone about it. I made it and people devoured it. Then opened there mouth as I told them it was vegan and avocado was in it. This is my go to chocolate cake now! MMM!!!!
Wow! I just made this cake and it surpassed all expectations. This cake is ridiculously delicious and moist and rich and we can’t stop talking about how amazing and moist and rich and did I say delicious! I made mine with coconut oil and milk, crazy good! Thank you so much for the recipe
Glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
This cake looks delish! And how long will it last?
I will try this recipe on my son B-Day next Saturday… I can’t wait!
You will not be disappointed. It is one of the best chocolate cake recipes. If there’s a “fault” it might be that it’s too chocolaty! I used Hershey unsweetened cocoa in the recipe. For the ganache, I used 1/3 cup vegan chocolate chips and 1/2 cup almond milk. Ghiradelli semi-sweet chips are vegan, by the way.
Planning on making this tonight and was wondering if it would hold as a layered cake instead of using a bunt pan?
I made this cake today. It was EXCELLENT My son loved it but I still won’t tell him there’s avocado in it. No way does this taste “vegan”…or maybe it does. Because a lot of vegan food, I’ve discovered, is absolutely delicious. If only people knew!!!!!
Hass avocado or Florida avocado? Also, those sprinkles look suspiciously non-vegan to me. The shine on them makes me think they are made with confectioner's glaze. All the vegan sprinkles I've ever found are non-shiny.
This looks so delicious!!! No wonder why it is called the “best ever” Thanks for sharing!!
Yeah, those sprinkles aren’t vegan. They’re made with confectioner’s glaze, which is an insect secretion, and therefore an animal ingredient.
There are vegan sprinkles available. FYI.
I tried this cake and the cake didn’t rise. I think the recipe above is missing baking powder. I don’t know how others on here got a “delicious” cake out of this without the baking powder. Someone tell me if I’m wrong. I followed the instructions explicitly and they didn’t work for me. Disappointed.
There’s baking soda. A big question for you, would be is your baking soda fresh?
This looks SO great! Is there any substitute for the coffee though. NOT a coffee drinker at all.
You can just use warm water, but I can assure you that you won’t taste the coffee at all in this cake.
How many calories is a piece?
Hey Monique,
your cake looks amazing!
Do you know if you can bake it two days in advance? I have to bake a cake for Saturday and want it to be moist and delicious, of course 🙂
I don’t see why you couldn’t! I would suggest keeping it in the fridge though.
The cake was great! Even now, four days after baking, it’s still moist and delicious! Thanks so much for the recipe.
This looks so yummy and want to make for my daughters bday. Should I double recipe to do 2 layer cake? Thanks for all your great recipes!
I didn’t read through all the posts, so this question may already have been asked and answered. What if one doesn’t want to add the coffee? What would replace it?
You could use almond milk! Or even water.
I havent made this YET but coffee really brings out the chocolate flavor whwn baking…Im not a coffee drinker and usually lessen amt of coffee, use decaf and can add some water..just sharing a suggestion!
Gisele bundchens vegan birthday cake http://bit.ly/2kt86Ab
I have cooked with avocados before and everything turns out great. I am making this for dinner’s dessert tonight but since I am pre-diabetic I will be substituting the white sugar with half the amount of powdered stevia and the brown sugar with a Truvia brown sugar blend.
This cake was great! I bake a lot for my colleagues and have tried a number of vegan baking recipes, none of which I have liked, since my boss is vegan. Today, I took this cake in along with a Tres Leches cake for a staff meeting. This cake got rave reviews from my colleagues and disappeared before the Tres Leches cake, also a great cake, One of my colleagues asked me what was in the cake; she said that it was a good thing she didn’t know what was in it before she tasted it; she stated that she would not have tried it. However, she stated that she loved the cake! Chocolate cakes are generally not my personal favorite cake, but I thought this cake was wonderful. Thanks Monique for developing and sharing this recipe!
I’m so glad you and your colleagues enjoyed this! Sometimes it’s good to keep the sneaky healthy ingredients a secret until everyone’s tried (and loved) the recipe 🙂
Looks amazing! I don’t own a bundt cake pan. Would this work with a different pan as well?
It should work in a different pan – just watch the cook time on it!
Can I just leave out the coffee? I want to make it for a children’s party and don’t want to overdose the kids with the caffeine from chocolate AND coffee. 🙂
Yes! Just replace it with dairy free milk.
Can you tell approximately what the measurement is for 1/2 of a large avocado? I only can find small to medium sized ones right now. Thank you! Making this tonight!
About 2/3 cup mashed, approximately.
avocado + chocolate yes please!
Made this yesterday and it was a big hit with everyone! Vegan or not.. it’s a great cake! I doubled the ganache and served with a spoon on the side.. OMG Thank you!
Love it! So happy to hear that 🙂
Wow wow wow this chocolate cake was amazing! Not amazing for a vegan cake, amazing period. So so so good and now my go to chocolate cake.
This cake is amazing! I was looking for a cake recipe since my birthday was coming up. I try to avoid gluten, dairy and refined sugar as much as possible so your blog has been a lifesaver for satisfying my sweet tooth. My son has a tree nut allergy, so sometimes it is hard to find recipes that both of us can enjoy. This one was perfect! I used a gluten free flour blend and it came out perfectly- so fudgy, rich and delicious. I did use coconut milk and didn’t notice a coconut flavor at all, though I wouldn’t have minded that. One other note- I was craving chocolate and peanut butter (thankfully my son can have peanuts!) so instead of the chocolate ganache (which sounds amazing and I will try it next time I make this!), I actually made the peanut butter frosting from you Damn Good Peanut Butter Banana Cake to use on this one instead. SO. AMAZING. I did half the frosting recipe and it was enough to cover the top of the cake and a bit onto the sides. Just the right mix of peanut butter and chocolate. Topped with a sprinkling of chocolate chips and all my birthday dreams came true! Thanks for sharing so many incredible recipes and doing the work to find delicious alternatives to traditional baking and treats for those of us who need other options!
Perfect!! So glad it was a hit!
Followed the recipe to a tee except for substituting applesauce for the oil. The coffee seems to accentuate the deep, dark fudginess of the chocolate. The texture is surprisingly fluffy for a gluten-free, vegan cake. (I was hesitant to use gluten-free flour because these types of recipes usually don’t turn out and it’s a waste of ingredients.) Made it for Valentine’s Day. Thank you for sharing this!
I’m so happy it turned out amazing! Thanks, Laurie 🙂
Yet again, Ambitious Kitchen provides a delicious recipe while not going overboard on sugar and extraneous ingredients! I am not a huge chocolate fan (I know, I know), but this was the perfect amount of chocolate for me. It wasn’t too heavy and the ganache made with coconut milk complemented the cake part so nicely. Thank you for another wonderful recipe that I will be sure to make again and again and share with friends!
Absolutely! So glad you enjoyed!
made this today for my eldest daughter who’s moving into her new home tomorrow. She loved it aswell as the rest of the family. so so moist!!! had trouble slicing it as it kept falling apart. quick question. I baked it in a loaf tin for almost 40 mins. the ends didn’t burn but hardened. should I have covered with foil at about 30 min mark?? did I do something wrong?
Hello! So glad everyone enjoyed it 🙂 And hmm not sure, I haven’t had those issues, so I’m not totally sure what could’ve happened. But I haven’t tried making it in a loaf pan so maybe it just baked up differently than the bundt version. Sorry I can’t be more helpful!
Hey! I love all of your recipes, thank you for sharing 🙂 This is actually a question not a comment but, can I use a 9 inch loaf pan or does it have to be a Bundt?
That should work, you’ll just have to adjust the bake time on it!
This cake is amazing! Pretty easy to make and super fudgy and rich. Loved the ganache on top too. We’ve been eating it cold out of the fridge and it has been just perfect. Topped with flake sea salt for the ultimate finishing touch!
Amazing! Glad it was a hit!
Can I bake this recipe in a circle can pan or jelly roll pan?
I haven’t tried it, so I’m not 100% sure how I’d change the baking!