Dark chocolate & avocado cupcakes

Rich dark chocolate combines beautifully with the creamy ripe avocados and toasted walnuts to create a truly melt-in-the mouth, unique and luxurious taste. Avocado replaces butter in this cupcake's frosting, making it a slightly healthier option. Lily Vanilli, renowned for her cupcake sculptures, has baked this deliciously unique cupcake using Divine Chocolate and Tate & Lyle fair-trade sugar. Here's how to recreate your very own couture cupcake creation with Divine Chocolate and Tate & Lyle fair-trade sugar.

What you need:

For the cake mixture

• 2 x 100g Divine dark chocolate
• 200g unsalted butter, very soft
• 200g Tate & Lyle Fairtrade caster sugar
• 4 large free range eggs, at room temperature
• 100ml sour cream
• 200g self-raising flour

For the topping:

• 2 cups very ripe avocado flesh (use the ripest you can find before the flesh has turned brown - cut out any brown bits)
• 1½ cups Tate & Lyle Fairtrade Icing Sugar
• 1½ tsp lemon juice
• 12-hole muffin tray lined with paper muffin cases

What you do:

1. Heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4
2. Break up the chocolate bars and melt gently. Remove the bowl from the heat and leave to cool. Put the butter and sugar into a food mixer and beat until light and creamy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition
3. Stir in the sour cream on low speed, followed by the flour and finally the melted chocolate, mixing gently until thoroughly combined. Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases and bake for 25mins until firm to the touch. Remove the muffins from the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack
4. Meanwhile make the topping: Using a hand mixer, blend the avocado with the lemon juice until you achieve a smooth consistency, working out any lumps. Slowly blend in the sugar, increasing the speed of the mixer as you go (feel free to add more or less sugar to achieve a consistency & taste you like)
5. Spread over the cooled cakes. Using a zester, create some dark chocolate shavings and sprinkle some onto the frosting and top with a cooled toasted walnut.

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