CHOCOLATE AVOCADO NICE-CREAM FLOWERPOT CAKES

Serves 6

For the black bean brownies:

225 g (8 oz/1½ cups) dark chocolate, broken into chunks.
1 × 400g (14 oz) tin of cooked black beans, rinsed and drained
30 g (1 oz/¼ cup) unsweetened cocoa powder, or cacao powder • 2 large eggs
80 ml (2½ fl oz) coconut oil, melted • ¼ tsp of ground cinnamon
2 tsp vanilla extract • a generous pinch of salt • ½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp instant coffee granules • 2 tsp of maple syrup

For the chocolate avocado nice cream:

4 bananas, peeled and frozen • 2 tsp almond milk, chilled (thick part only) • 1 large ripe avocado
2 tbsp maple syrup • 2 tbsp brown rice syrup or liquid sweetener of choice
4 tbsp unsweetened cacao powder or cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract • ½ tsp sea salt

For the Oreo ‘soil’:

1 × 154 g (5 ½ oz) packet Oreos

For the flowerpots:

6 × small clay flower pots (300 ml/10 fl oz), or freezer-safe pots, washed and dried
6 × plastic drinking straws • freshly cut flowers of choice

I love bringing these to the table as though they are simply the table decorations and then seeing the surprise on people’s faces when you hand them a spoon after dinner and tell them to dig in. This timing actually works really well, as the nice cream pots need time to thaw.

Preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F/Gas 4) and line a 20 × 20 cm (8 × 8 in) baking sheet with baking parchment.

To make the brownies, pop everything into a food processor and blend until it’s smooth and creamy. Tip onto your prepared baking tray and smooth the mixture out. Bake in the oven for about 35 minutes, until it’s firm to the touch and a toothpick comes out clean-ish. Leave to cool.

Find a cookie cutter or glass that is roughly the same width as the bottom of your flowerpots, then stamp out 6 circles of brownie. Drop the brownie circles into each of your flowerpots, lightly pressing to make sure they are all the way down.

Hold a straw up against the side of a flowerpot and snip it so it’s 1–2.5 cm (½–1 in) shorter than the top rim of the pot. Repeat with the other straws. Stick each straw into the centre of each pot through the brownie.

To make the Oreo ‘soil’ for the pots, simply blitz up the Oreos in a food processor until they are a fine ‘soil’ texture.

For the chocolate avocado nice cream, blend together all the ingredients until smooth and creamy like soft-serve ice cream.

To assemble, spoon the chocolate avocado nice cream into the pots on top of the brownie. Work the nice cream around the straw, until it almost reaches the top of the straw. Top with a generous mound of the Oreo ‘soil’. Pop a fresh flower into each straw and serve.

If you want to make these ahead, just don’t adorn with the flowers. You can keep these in the freezer until you are ready to serve them and then pop the flowers in when you take them out of the freezer. Make sure you allow the pots to soften for 20–25 minutes before serving.