Avocado has a sweet side, too, and it's delicious

Ask cookbook author Pat Tanumihardja about some of her favorite food memories growing up in Indonesia, and avocados will figure prominently in her response.

“Half an avocado, drizzled with palm sugar syrup,” she says with a happy sigh.

In many cultures, from Indonesia to Brazil to Sri Lanka, the avocado is treated as the fruit it actually is, sometimes topped off with a squirt of chocolate syrup or sweetened condensed milk and, more often, incorporated into sweet drinks. The frosty avocado-based shake known in Vietnam as sinh to bo is a simple combination of avocado, condensed milk, ice cubes and sugar syrup that is replicated variously around the world: Indonesians add coffee or chocolate syrup, calling it Es Alpukat, while Brazilians enliven the same shake with a squirt of tart lime juice, and a Moroccan version sweetens the mix with powdered sugar and a hint of orange flower water.

Known across Asia as “butter fruit,” the avocado has a mild flavor and creamy texture that makes it a remarkably adaptable ingredient for many recipes, including desserts. While avocados are normally consumed raw and can become bitter if cooked over direct heat, they can be mashed or pureed in baking, and they are increasingly being found whipped into smoothies and bubble teas as Americans discover that avocados can go far beyond standard chip-and-dip fare.

Using avocados for something besides guacamole or other savory dishes was a tough sell for Pati Jinich, who grew up in Mexico City and is host of the PBS television series “Pati's Mexican Table.”

“The first time I ever heard of using avocados in something sweet was from my sister, Sharon, who is a vegan,” Jinich says. “She made this avocado chocolate mousse, and I was totally disgusted by the thought of it.”

But because of its thick, buttery consistency, avocado does seem to particularly shine when paired with chocolate, Tanumihardja notes.

“Chocolate mousse is a great way to introduce someone to avocado as a dessert, because you really don't know there's avocado in it,” she said.

Indeed, Jinich's sister had the last laugh, because that mousse turned out to be delicious, claiming another convert to the avocado-as-dessert movement. Inspired by her sister's mousse, Jinich began experimenting with avocados in smoothies, pancakes and popsicles, leading her to create desserts such as avocado and coconut ice cream, a surprisingly rich dairy-free confection with a velvety mouthfeel reminiscent of gelato.

“I found that avocados could be one of the most luscious, sensuous, silky, exuberant ingredients ever,” Jinich said. “In my house, we use avocados as a savory ingredient 65 percent of the time. We throw it on top of everything. But these days, I'm also putting it in cakes.”

The creamy texture of ripe avocados makes it a natural ingredient for rich desserts that are deceptively healthful because, although there's up to 28 grams of fat in a medium-size fruit, it is largely monounsaturated fat, which can lower LDL cholesterol. A tablespoon of avocado has 25 calories, compared to 100 calories in the same amount of butter, and just more than two grams of fat, primarily unsaturated, in contrast to 12 grams of mostly saturated fat in butter. Substitute mashed avocado 1-to-1 for at least some of the butter in baked goods and suddenly that brownie seems like less of a no-no.

When Lara Ferroni set out to research avocado recipes for her book “An Avocado a Day” (Sasquatch Books, 2017), she also wasn't necessarily a fan of the dessert avocado. Four months and 300 avocados later, she has seen the light.

“Avocados don't really have a savory flavor,” Ferroni said, “but they have an umami quality. Once I got over that mental hump of 'It's just for guacamole,' it was really easy to take avocados in a sweet direction.”

It was a trip to Australia and New Zealand in December 2015 that got Ferroni, who typically writes single-subject cookbooks on such topics as doughnuts and eggs, thinking about exploring avocados: “You'll find avocados in so many applications there - pickled or mixed with other types of fruit or mashed on toast with goat cheese and balsamic vinegar.”

Indeed, avocado can play as well with mango, pineapple and citrus as it does with chocolate, coffee and vanilla. If you're having trouble embracing avocado as a fruit, both Jinich and Ferroni recommend tossing chunks of it into smoothies, which Jinich called “a perfect gateway for avocados” - or even margaritas.

“Once you've done that, it's easier to take the plunge for adding it to cookies and cakes,” Jinich said.

Ferroni's “Cado-ritas” blend just a smidgen of avocado with lime juice, sugar, tequila and orange liqueur to add a touch of creaminess to a traditional margarita.

“Once I started to explore avocado-based beverages, I really became interested in how to achieve different degrees of creaminess without using dairy,” she said.

Her Avocado Key Lime Pie combines many of the same ingredients as her cocktail into a cool green custard inside a graham cracker crust.

“It's deliciously tart and creamy,” she said.

Best of all, the no-bake filling makes it a standout summer recipe with a handful of ingredients and a minimum of prep.

With avocado prices rising this year due to a smaller harvest, the good news is that a little avocado can actually go a long way - although for some, that may lead to concerns about how to store any fruit that didn't make it into that pie or ice cream.

Ferroni thinks she has found the solution: Freezing avocado, either in cubes or lightly mashed, then defrosting it for later use in baked goods or smoothies - but not in guacamole or any other applications where fresh is best.

“I'm pretty sure there was a period of time that I was the country's largest avocado purchaser as a home cook,” Ferroni said. “I had to figure out what to do with all those leftovers.”