Cupcake Monday

I have a friend who loves cookbooks. She sends me emails about cookbooks that she thinks I should buy for our library's collection, always kindly including a link to a review or to Amazon so I can investigate further. Last week she sent me a link to the Amazon listing for a book called Everything Vegan. If you click on the link, you'll see that they have a few sample recipes listed & one of them is Chocolate Avocado Cupcakes. I was intrigued, my colleague J was not enthusiastic, but I thought, why not give them a try? So, I have. I took the precaution of tasting one before I went to the trouble of making the icing & they taste good.

As it's a vegan recipe, there's no dairy or eggs (although I used ordinary chocolate icing instead of the tofu glaze in the recipe) but the avocado takes the place of most of the oil & the texture is just like any other cupcake I've made. Next time I'd use a riper avocado as the one I used was a little firm. But, I didn't have time to wait for the avocado to ripen & the flavour & texture were just fine.

These are destined for morning tea at work but just in case there are any of my colleagues (like J) who are put off by the thought of avocadoes in their cupcakes, I've also made Ginger Cupcakes with Ginger Caramel Frosting from the lovely Divine Cupcakes book by Tamara Jane. No strange ingredients, just ordinary cupcakes with a slightly fancier frosting, for those who don't want a culinary challenge on a Monday morning.