We Tried This Viral 2-Ingredient Cauliflower Fudge So You Don't Have To

Cauliflower may have officially entered its final form. It's spent the last decade being reimagined as pizza crust, rice, and crunchy air fryer Buffalo cauliflower wings. It's even found its way into the unlikely category of dessert as part of a two-ingredient chocolate fudge from Bethany Ugarte, who goes by Lilsipper on TikTok. The concept sounds simple at first: You steam 1½ cups of cauliflower, blend it with ½ a cup of chocolate, and chill it in the fridge until it has a perfect fudge consistency.

As a vegan who often experiments with turning vegetables into all kinds of dishes, naturally, I had to try it. Comments on this recipe vary, with some people acting as though it's the newest nutritious dessert miracle and others reacting far less enthusiastically. I remained open-minded.

Choosing steaming over boiling seemed like an important step, since cauliflower contains plenty of water, which you definitely wouldn't want in fudge. In her video, Ugarte also says there's no need to melt the chocolate in advance, as the steam from the cauliflower does that on its own. And sure enough, the initial blended consistency was something like a chocolate hummus. I used dark chocolate, which is considered healthier, but my reasoning was simply that I'm plant-based, so others could certainly use milk chocolate instead. I was wary of the bitterness of the dark chocolate, though. Plus, I'd read some comments about the cauliflower taste coming through, so I added a dash of maple syrup and a little sea salt to try to get ahead.

After blending, it certainly looked the part — it was smooth and fudgy the way you'd want it to be, and all I had to do was press it into a Tupperware dish lined with baking paper and put it in the fridge overnight to set. Common issues, like fudge that's so grainy it needs fixing, didn't seem to be a concern, which was surprising since I had half-expected to find little cauliflower lumps throughout. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm was short-lived. The comments warning that it would taste exactly how you'd imagine cold chocolate cauliflower to taste were correct. Without exaggeration, it was one of the worst things I've ever tried — that unmistakably cruciferous taste is not something anyone should have to taste mixed with chocolate. 

In theory, I think the idea could still be salvageable, just not with its current "two-ingredient" framing. Even after adding a sweetener and seasoning with sea salt, the steamed cauliflower flavor was just too strong. Other ingredients like vanilla extract or espresso powder might just be strong enough to fight back (and maybe sweetening it a bit more). Or perhaps the issue is using cauliflower at all; another option could be to try this recipe with a steamed vegetable that is naturally sweeter, like sweet potato. On the surface, it was a fascinating experiment, but ultimately, it mostly just felt like horrible proof that cauliflower and dessert were never meant to cross paths.