All-Fruit Chocolate Frosting

This frosting is rich, creamy, and very, very chocolatey. It ranges from slightly sweet to moderately sweet, depending on the ripeness of the banana (riper bananas make sweeter frosting). It keeps well in the fridge for a long time and still has a creamy, easy-to-spread texture when it's cold. Obviously it can be used as frosting for cakes and cupcakes, but I've also found that it's delicious when served as a dip or topping for fresh fruit.

The best aspect of this recipe is that it's so healthy, if you break down and start shoveling frosting into your mouth with a spoon (and let's be honest, everyone does this at one point or another), that's perfectly ok! It's all fruit, so it's actually healthy to pig out a bit on this stuff.

This Recipe's Health Goodness:

• It's entirely sugar-free AND sweetener-free--no refined sugars of any kind, no artificial sweeteners.
• It's extremely high in dietary fiber (especially compared to typical frostings)
• It's low in unhealthy fats (especially compared to typical frostings)
• It contains avocado, a much-celebrated "superfood" 
• It's contains lots of cocoa powder, which is an antioxidant-rich "superfood"
• It's vegan!

INGREDIENTS:

1 ripe to overripe banana

2 tbs cocoa powder 

1 ripe avocado 

(I know, it sounds crazy, but it works!)

1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

1 tsp lemon juice (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

If you have a food processor or a blender, throw in all the ingredients and thoroughly blend them.

But, if you don't have a food processor or blender:

STEP 1:

Cream the avocado flesh. You can do this using a mixer, or you can use a whisk or fork and do it by hand. 

This is the most important step!

It is crucial that the avocado be thoroughly creamed, with a smooth texture like mayonaise or yogurt. Unblended avocado chunks will ruin both the texture and the taste of the frosting.

STEP 2:

Mash in the banana. 

This step is less important, but try to make sure the banana is also thoroughly mashed.

STEP 3:

Mix the creamed avocado, mashed banana and other ingredients. 

NOTA BENE: I will upload pictures the next time I make this recipe.

Dark Cupcakes

Hmm, Chocolatey...

I call this recipe "Dark Cupcakes" because the end result tastes similar to very, very dark chocolate (the kind of chocolate that is 70%-90% cocoa). These cupcakes are extremely chocolatey but not very sweet. The texture is more thick and moist than a typical cake or cupcake; less fluffy, more decadent. 

For a variation, you can add nuts to this recipe.  In the pictures below, I use chopped walnuts, which worked wonderfully. However, any kind of nut that tastes good with dark chocolate would work  (almonds, pecans, and peanuts are a few examples).

This Recipe's Health Goodness:

• It's entirely sugar-free and sweetener-free--no refined sugar of any kind, no artificial sweeteners.
• It's very low in unhealthy fats (simply replacing the egg with two egg whites would make it fat-free).
• It's high in dietary fiber.
• It's contains lots of cocoa powder, which is an antioxidant-rich "superfood"

INGREDIENTS:

1 egg

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

2.5 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 banana (preferably overripe)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

nuts (optional)

(Note: this makes 9 mini-cupcakes)

STEP 1:

Set your oven to 300 degrees F. 

(Yes, 300, not 350. Recipes with lots of fruit in them need to bake longer at lower temperatures.)

STEP 2:

Put all the ingredients in a food processor and blend them. 

If you don't have a food processor, then break this into three mini-steps:

Mash the banana in your mixing bowl.

Mix the vanilla extract and egg into the mashed banana.

Whisk in the flour and cocoa powder.

When step 2 is completed, the batter should be thick and gooey.

STEP 3: 

Prepare your cupcake pan. You can either grease it with butter or coconut oil, or use little paper cupcake liners. I have a nonstick mini-cupcake pan, so I skipped this step entirely.

STEP 4: 

If you're making plain cupcakes:

Spoon the batter into the cupcake pan, until each cup is about 2/3 full.

If you're adding nuts:

Spoon in batter into each cup until the cup is about 1/3 full.

 Put in your filling ingredient and gently push it into the batter. Try to make sure the filling ingredient is approximately in the middle of the cupcake.

Carefully spoon more batter on top of the filling ingredient until it is fully covered. 

Either way, at the end of step 4, the pan should look something like this.

STEP 5: 

Bake the cupcakes until you stick toothpick in them and it comes out clean. For mini-cupcakes, this is about 20 minutes. I haven't tried making these in a different size so the baking time could vary.

STEP 6:

When the cupcakes are done baking, remove them from the baking pan and let them cool on a plate.

STEP 7 (optional):

When the cupcakes have cooled, frost them with All-Fruit Chocolate Frosting.

When you're done, enjoy the treat!