I suspect the Goddess of Baking likes to play tricks on me. Earlier today, I made brownies with a recipe from Saveur magazine. I swear I followed the instructions word for word. And what do I get for being so square? My brownies came out dry and floury. Very.

Ok. I used 1/4 less sugar but that shouldn’t cause it to be dry.  Should it?

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To say I was UPSET was putting it very lightly. I was making it for my loving 8 year old niece. She has been asking (countless times) me when I will make brownies again. Usually I make Cheesecake Brownie and she would scrap off the cheese part. She was with me when I was mixing everything in the kitchen and I could just see the anticipation in her eyes. When I popped the thing into the oven, I told her 40 minutes and the brownie would be ready. She gave me a big smile and skipped back to watching TV.

Well, forty minutes later, I ended up with a dry, flour-y, chocolaty mass. Luckily, my niece went home for lunch. I don’t think I could bear to see the disappointment in her eyes. Ever have big round watery eyes stare at you? So I figured I’d make up for it with Avocado & Chocolate Chips Cupcakes. (Ran out of chocolate to make more brownies.)

The only thing is I don’t have any recipe for it. I wanted to use almond meal and crème fraîche. All the recipes I found have either one or the other. Being me, I thought I could just use a basic cupcake recipe, add or substitute a few things and……ta-ta-daaaaa, taaaaaaa-daaaaaaaa…..the cupcakes will wow my niece. At least, they should make her forget about the brownies.

But my parents forgot to ask the Goddess of Baking to bless me when I was born. It took me a while to get it the way I want. I was in the kitchen from noon till late evening. I don’t even know what I am going to do with the flopped cupcakes.

More food for nephew’s goldfish?

My very first mishap started with the avocados. I had bought two and one of them was all brown and fiber-y inside. Of course, I discarded that one but I had already mixed all the other ingredients together. Ingredients enough for two avocados.  Well, I could only halved it and used the other one for plain Chocolate Chip cupcakes. Everything should work fine, right?

But no, no, no, NO! The Goddess of Baking smirked and the first test batch came out wet. Extremely wet. I guess in substituting some parts of the flour for almond meal and adding mashed avocado made the mixture, well, wet. The damn thing was I had already filled the rest into cute little cupcake paper cups. Yup, I scooped them out again. Weighed the whole thing again, gave it a rough estimate and added more flour. Then I scooped everything back into those cute tiny cupcakes that were beginning to annoy me.

Why can’t I just use larger cupcake paper cups? Oh. I remember. I BOO-BOOED on a test batch and only have so much left. Enough to fill only two large cupcakes. Imagine two avocado cupcakes after hours in the kitchen? So, nine small cupcakes they are.

I did the same thing for the plain Chocolate Chip batch and filled everything into large cupcake paper cups. By now I was hungry and tired. My legs were sore. I must have overfilled the paper cups because……..

the blob returned! Well, more food for the goldfish, again.

But in the end, I am happy with the Avocado & Chocolate Chip Cupcakes. It was moist and the almond meal gave it a nutty and slightly dense flavor. The avocado also gave it a creamy and buttery texture which marries very well with the sweetness from the chocolate chips. I am not sure if my niece likes avocados or not. But at least she can always pick out the chocolate chips.

The recipe below is for Avocado Chocolate Chip Cupcakes only. Initially, I was going to top it with cream cheese frosting but ran out of cream cheese. Then I thought a coconut milk glaze would be just as decadent but I was tired………and if it failed the goldfish would be pissed. I topped each with chocolate chips, instead.

Ingredients:

100 grams crème fraîche

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon allspice

120 grams flour

40 grams almond meal

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

55 grams sugar

60 grams chocolate chips (and a few more for decorating)

100 grams butter (softened)

1 avocado (mine came to 120 grams when mashed)

1 tablespoon lime juice

1.  Preheat oven to 180 C.

2.  Combine the first four ingredients together.  Mix well.

3. In another mixing bowl mix together the flour, almond meal, sugar, baking soda and baking powder.  Pour into the mixture in number one and mix well.

4.  Mash the avocado with the lime juice.  Add in the softened butter.  Mix well and pour into mixture number two.  Add in the chocolate chips and mix well again.

5.  Line cupcake paper cups on a baking tray.  Fill in the cupcake mixture and top with chocolate chips.

6.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Check if done by sticking a toothpick into the center of one of the cupcakes.  If it comes out clean, then it’s done.  If not, continue baking for a few more minutes.