Chocolate avocado cake (vegan & gluten free)

Chocolate avocado cake makes a great first birthday cake, or a fun option for a toddler’s party! Read on to find out how I adapted a vegan & gluten free BBC Good Food recipe for my son’s second birthday celebration.

Coming up with fun party food for young children with cows milk protein allergy and other food allergies can be challenging, and birthday cakes are particularly difficult. Serving up a good cake is all mixed up with the emotions of not wanting them to miss out due to their allergies. I’ll admit I found myself getting disproportionately stressed about it!

For my son’s second birthday I sought ideas from the knowledgeable parents on various online allergy forums I belong to. I really do think these forums are brilliant; people are just so willing to share tips and advice. I was directed towards a BBC Good Food chocolate avocado cake recipe. They promised it was pretty easy to get right and is also very tasty. Luckily, they were correct! It’s got a delicious fudgey texture and earned a thumbs up all round.

Chocolate avocado birthday cake how-to guide

As a starting point I followed the BBC good food recipe. I made the following adaptations to make it soya free and more toddler friendly:

• I cut the sugar by 25%, so used 225g. I think you could cut it further and it would still taste good.
• I substituted the soya milk with almond milk (gluten free oat milk would also work fine to make it nut free). I used an unsweetened and calcium fortified almond milk; I’m always looking for ways to boost calcium intake.
• I switched the rather complicated frosting suggested in the recipe for a basic dairy free buttercream (see below for the recipe).
• I switched sprinkles for fresh fruit!

The good thing about this chocolate avocado cake is that it doesn’t have lots of complicated steps, it’s pretty much just whizzed up in a food processor. However, if you are new to vegan baking, I recommend you check out my post on tips for getting started with vegan baking. It will highly increase your chances of success!

I made the cake base the day before the party, then on the morning I made up the buttercream and assembled the cake, with a thin layer of buttercream in the middle and a thicker layer on the top. One word of warning here – the cakes are a bit delicate, so be gentle when you are moving them and don’t spread the icing too vigorously.

Dairy free buttercream recipe

The buttercream recipe I used was as follows:

• 140g Stork baking block
• 280g icing sugar
• 40g pure cacao powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1-2 tbsp almond or oat milk

Whisk the Stork in a large bowl until soft. Stir in half of the icing sugar and whisk until smooth.

Add the remaining icing sugar and the cacao powder, one tablespoon of the almond/oat milk and the vanilla extract. Then beat the mixture until creamy and smooth. If necessary, beat in the remaining milk to get your desired consistency.

I decorated the cake with raspberries and strawberries, which worked really well with the buttercream – and is also extremely easy!

More allergy friendly birthday cake inspiration:

• How to make a dairy and egg free chocolate overload cake
• The best birthday cake recipes for children with dairy and egg allergies
• Top tips for successfully baking a dairy and egg free cake
• The easy hack to make a Betty Crocker cake mix without eggs
• Round up of vegan – and accidentally vegan – cake mixes
• For lots of allergy friendly cake decoration ideas, check out this inspiration gallery full of cakes submitted by other allergy parents!