You know you want to try pudding made out of chocolate and peanut butter…and avocados.
OK, well, at the very least I know I want you to try it—because the experience of tasting this pudding for the first time is downright bizarre and I think you’ll get a kick out of it. Your taste buds expect guacamole, but you get velvety chocolate pudding. In fact, I can almost guarantee you’ll be sweet on this dessert. (Heh.)
Besides, if you didn’t make this pudding yourself, you wouldn’t even know it had avocados in it. I know this because I served it to some very game friends and made them guess the secret veggie ingredient.
“Bananas,” said the first. (Eh? Vegetable?)
“Pine nuts,” another ventured.
“Yucca.”
“Squash.”
I was delighted that I’d hidden a vegetable so superbly. Yucca? Squash? Awesome!
Then someone got it.
“Avocado.”
“Yes!” I answered, a little too enthusiastically.
“But that’s a fruit,” the guesser countered. “Botanically speaking.”
That’ll teach me to have smart friends.
Finer points of botanical categorization aside, trying to peg the avocado flavor in this pudding is like trying to find a stick bug in a twig pile. (Although the pudding does have a distinct banana flavor, which is odd considering no bananas are involved—unless you garnish with banana slices, of course.) Better yet, the recipe couldn’t be easier: just chuck all the ingredients in a food processor and whiz until smooth.
There is a catch, though: break one rule, and it’s hello, chocolate guacamole.
I discovered this during my first attempt at the recipe that inspired this pudding. I followed the instructions to the letter (so I thought), right down to using perfectly ripe avocados. Yet somehow, I ended up with a perfectly inedible batch of chocolaty avocado puree.
Huh.
Since I’d purchased a huge stack of avocados, I decided to experiment with another batch. I swapped peanut butter for almond butter, doubled the sweetener (agave nectar) which made the texture more pudding than mousse, and quadrupled the vanilla extract, thinking it might drown out the avocado flavor.
No such luck. Now I had two batches of chocolate goo destined for the trash. But as I went to throw them out, I was seized with remorse at the waste, so I stashed the pudding in the fridge to be eaten “later.”
The next day, I realized “later” would never come and went to throw the pudding out. But before I did, I decided to try just one more tiny bite.
And—what was this? Delicious!
Overnight, some strange transmogrification had occurred, morphing the avocadoey puree into smooth, rich…chocolate peanut butter pudding. Over the next few days, hubby and I gobbled up both batches—and felt virtuous to boot. After all, we were eating our vegetables.
Next time I made the recipe in advance, and sure enough on the second day—tasty! The third time, though, I used avocados that were a little squishier than I thought was ideal—and the pudding tasted great right out of the food processor. Original recipe, with its exhortation to only use perfectly ripe avocados, vindicated!
So you can actually follow your choice of rules for achieving silky chocolate peanut butter perfection: use exquisitely ripe avocados—maybe even a little softer than you might use otherwise—or let the pudding mellow in the fridge overnight before eating it.
Whichever method you choose, leave me a comment when you try it—I’m curious to know what you think!
Avocado Chocolate Peanut Butter Pudding
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 ripe avocados peeled and sliced
- ¾ cup agave nectar
- 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
- ¼ cup + generous pinch of cocoa powder more to taste
- ¼ cup peanut butter
- 1 pinch cinnamon
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a food processor until velvety smooth.
- Refrigerate for 12-24 hours. Serve topped with banana slices and halved peanut butter cups to really wow ‘em!
Nutrition
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Want another offbeat avocado recipe? Check out this quick and easy avocado and grapefruit salad.
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I'm Lee, an RD thriving on a healthy plant based diet.
Oh what a difference that day made! It went from 'good try Honey' to 'when are you making more?'
Hi Lelia! I love your blog! There are a lot of recipes I'd like to try, including this one. I look forward to following your quest.