This week’s Sweet is Chocomole, a mousse of sorts made with avocado, dates, agave nectar, raw cacao, coconut oil and vanilla. Eating this got me thinking about the fun I had buying an avocado a couple of winters back.
In January of 2009, I went to the Saturday Farmers Market in St. Petersburg, Florida. I spotted the most enormous avocados I had ever seen. I asked the lady selling them if I could take a photo of the huge fruits she was selling for $2. She told me I could, but only if I would help her sell produce. She was a busy lady!
I jumped at the chance, slid behind the table and got to work selling produce at one of the best attended markets I’ve ever visited. I was coached to not bargain, the price was the price, and to only gives bags when asked. I liked this lady, all business! After about 10 minutes, she said, “Okay, take your picture now.” I asked a stranger buying produce to snap the photo for me, then bought an avocado to bring home to Missouri.
The avocado made it home, where it sat on the counter for almost a week before it was ripe enough to use for guacamole. It took only that one enormous avocado to make a big bowl of guacamole. The pit was the size of a baseball. I decided to attempt growing an avocado tree from the pit. Once I found a glass large enough, I inserted three toothpicks into the pit and suspended it so the bottom was just barely in water. It took three months, but finally sprouted roots. I took it to the greenhouse where our next door neighbor works and she helped me to pot it. If you want to grow your own avocado tree from a pit, read more here.
Here’s my tree, two years later. It’s now about four feet tall. It will probably never produce fruit but it reminds me often of a fun trip to a farmer’s market. I tried this January to buy another giant avocado at the same market, but found not a single avocado for sale. Winter was brutal this year and the crop was dismal. There were no giant avocados to bring home to Missouri, but there will still be Chocomole. Thanks, California Avocado Growers!
I have been making Chocomole for a couple of years. I started with this recipe from Jason Mraz’s blog. I’ve modified only a tiny bit, primarily to include measurements. This is a quick and easy dessert, free of refined sugar and sure to surprise your dinner guests when you tell them what’s in it!
Chocomole (Makes 4 servings)
2 ripe avocados
1 T. coconut oil
20 dates
2 T. raw cacao plus a bit extra for garnish (or unsweetened cocoa powder if not eating raw)
2 T. agave nectar (I prefer amber for this recipe)
1 t. vanilla bean paste or 1 vanilla bean, scraped
In spice mill or coffee grinder, grind raw cacao until it becomes a powder.
In food processor, place 20 dates and process until finely chopped. They will turn into a mooshy ball in the food processor.*
Slice the avocados in half carefully. Place the fruit into the bowl of the food processor. If you carefully clean out the shells, you can hang on to them and use them as serving bowls for the chocomole.
Add the ground cacao, coconut oil, agave nectar and vanilla bean paste to the food processor. Process until smooth.
Spoon into avocado shells or other serving bowls and refrigerate. I like to refrigerate this for at least a couple of hours before eating, if I can wait that long. Garnish with fresh fruit and a sprinkle of raw cacao. Enjoy!
*I used Deglet Noor dates to make this Chocomole. They are a bit crunchier/drier than some varieties of dates. If you feel like your dates are not moist and lean toward being crunchy, you can soak them in warm water for 20 minutes before processing. Drain well before processing. A softer Medjool, Sayer or Empress date doesn’t usually require soaking.
Nutrition info:
(I started the year of mentioning that I planned to include nutritional information when possible for my Sweets. I managed to do that just once. It’s very time consuming and to be honest, I don’t usually worry about the calorie content of my Sweets since I am eating only one each week. And I might not be using the same brand of ingredients as you, which would make the information inaccurate. But this time, I’m sharing because it’s interesting. If you want to determine calories and other nutritional info from any of my recipes, I recommend googling Calorie Count or similar.)
1 serving = 275 calories, 44 g carbs, 34 g sugar, 2.5 g protein, 8 g fiber, 12 g fat
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