Vegan Chocolate Orange Mousse Cake

I have got such a creamy and velvety smooth chocolate dessert to share with you today. As a general rule I try to have vegan desserts as we avoid dairy in our house. I like that they are filled with natural, raw goodness rather than anything artificial. I like to go by the rule of ‘if I can’t pronounce it, then I shouldn’t eat it’.

The creamy chocolate mousse is made from cacao, orange zest, maple syrup and avocados. Yes you read that correctly, avocados! You can’t tell that it is used but it just makes the mousse so smooth and gorgeous. My kids wolfed this down – they couldn’t tell the difference and just thought it was regular chocolate.

There is no added sugar – it just has sweetness from maple syrup and dates.  It is gluten-free, refined sugar-free and dairy free. Hence the vegan part in the title I suppose 😉

Ingredients

For the Base:

• 150g ground almonds
• 150g ground cashews
• 150g pitted medjool dates
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (alcohol free)

For the Mousse:

• 2 avocados
• 3 tbsp maple syrup
• zest of 1 orange
• 30g cacao powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (alcohol free)

Method

1. If you haven’t got ground almonds, then place the nuts in a food processor (or a strong blender) and mix until they are finely ground.
2. Put the dates, vanilla and the ground nuts in a food processor and blend until it forms a nice gooey dough.
3. Place the gooey date mixture in the bottom of a pie dish or baking tray. Compact it down the back of a spoon, until smooth.
4. For the mousse, place all of the mousse ingredients in a blender and mix until smooth. Pour over the base mixture and smooth it all out.
5. You could leave it plain or decorate with some fruit or nuts. Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

Enjoy! It is very rich so you don’t need a lot of it. It can keep in the fridge for around 4 days and it freezes like a dream too.