Chocolate Avocado Cupcakes with Cauliflower Frosting

I wanted to make another recipe from Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious, and since I had both avocado purée and cauliflower purée in the freezer, I figured these cupcakes would be perfect! It turns out that the chocolate cupcakes themselves were great, but the frosting was a disaster (despite my adding an extra ¼ cup confectioners’ sugar as well as ¼ cup cornstarch, it was still runny AF). However, the frosting fiasco is probably on me – I couldn’t find Green Valley Organics’ lactose-free cream cheese anywhere, so I had to resort to vegan cream cheese, and I don’t think that the frozen-then-thawed cauliflower purée was a good idea in this case. Keep that in mind if you try them. 

Again, the cupcakes themselves were rich and moist and fantastic! They plumped up beautifully, the crumb was pleasantly dense, and they were so flavorful! Everybody loved them. The Little Prince said they were like “muffin donuts” and the Fox actually said, “Thank you for making them so yummy!” 

For the cupcakes 

1 cup avocado purée 

1 ½ cups sugar 

1 cup lactose-free milk (nonfat/skim in the original recipe) 

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract 

½ tsp. balsamic vinegar 

2 large egg whites (I used 1 egg) 

2 cups all-purpose flour 

½ cup unsweetened cocoa flour 

1 tsp. baking soda 

½ tsp. salt 

For the frosting 

1 (8-oz.) package lactose-free cream cheese (see note above) 

½ cup confectioners’ sugar 

¼ cup cauliflower purée (see note above) 

2 Tbsp. pure vanilla extract 

1/8 tsp. salt 

Preheat oven to 350 °F. Coat a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray or line with paper baking cups. 

In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the avocado purée, sugar, milk, vanilla, and vinegar until smooth. Beat in the egg whites one at a time just until incorporated. 

Add the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt, and mix until smooth. Divide the batter among the muffin cups. Bake until the tops of the cupcakes are lightly browned and spring back to the touch, 15 to 20 minutes. Turn out onto a rack to cool completely before frosting them (this is important not only because the heat would melt the frosting, but because the avocado purée might still be detectable if the cupcakes are warm). 

For the frosting, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, cauliflower purée, vanilla, and salt until smooth. Spread over the cooled cupcakes.