Avocados + chocolate = a wonderfully smooth and delicious pudding kids will love? When I first heard of raw chocolate pudding, I was intrigued. I soon learned that this recipe was all over the vegan and raw food blogs. These health-conscious foodies claim that even avocado-haters and picky children will gobble it right up. What an excellent way to sneak a vegetable into my green-averse child’s diet, I thought. (You may remember my successful attempts at this in the past: Read all about my spinach popsicles and chocolate beet cake.)

Then I tried it. I had two perfectly-ripe, delicious-looking avocados. Some recipes used what looked like alarming amounts of agave syrup, and I was afraid of over-sweetening this dessert. Here’s the recipe I ended up using:

Blend with a hand blender, food processor, or regular blender until smooth and creamy:

2 avocados
2-3 TBS agave syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ cup cocoa powder

(If you want this to be a truly raw dessert, look for raw cacao powder and omit the vanilla.)

The look and texture was perfectly smooth and creamy. The taste, however . . . was awful. It is easy to describe the taste: just like avocados mixed with chocolate and sugar. My husband refused to try it. My sister was game. She said it was okay at first, but had an extremely “vegetal” aftertaste. The chocolate and agave combine to make an insipid, sweet-chocolatey flavor that needs something smooth and subtly sweet to give it depth—something like, well, milk or cream. The avocado, while providing a nice base that mimics regular pudding, does nothing to enhance the taste of the chocolate.

But is it at least good for you? Most vegans and raw-food enthusiasts argue that dairy—the base of regular pudding—is not healthful. As a dairy consumer, I like to think it is a good source of vitamins, protein, calcium, and other nutrients. Of course, I also love avocados, which come packed with vitamin C and ten grams of fiber per fruit.

I did wonder about the amount of sweetener found in some of the avocado pudding recipes. Terilynn over at the Daily Raw Cafe puts ½ cup of agave nectar in her recipe, which I believe makes 2 servings.  A half cup of nectar contains 128 grams of sugar! Compare that to my regular recipe for chocolate pudding—it calls for just 1/3 cup of sugar (67 grams) for four servings. That’s under 17 grams of sugar per serving, compared to 64 grams for a single serving of avocado pudding.

While I loved the idea of sneaking avocados into a raw, vegan concoction, I’ll never sacrifice another beautiful avocado to this so-called dessert again. It’s back to the basics for me. Yes, it takes a bit longer, requires some cooking over the stovetop and subsequent chilling in the fridge, but it’s worth the effort and the wait.

Still want to try it? Perhaps some of the vegan/raw food bloggers out there have a better recipe. Here are several to choose from:

Green & Crunchy suggests using dates as a sweetener.
Kidshealth.org also adds dates—and provides nutritional information for the dessert.
Democratic Underground has a variation with bananas and yogurt.
Eco Salon recommends using just a few spoonfuls of sweetener, which inspired my own recipe.
The Raw Table calls for coconut cream concentrate—an intriguing addition!