Super easy Paleo-friendly chocolate cupcakes

Super easy Paleo-friendly chocolate cupcakes

• 4.02.2013

I used to be quite the baker. In high school and college, I played around with my favorite cake and cookie recipes, kept a binder of the best magazine pages and printed notes, and had even recreated the world's best chocolate chip cookies, as determined by The Splendid Table.

But, three years ago I became raw vegan and stopped eating grains and anything baked in an oven! I had no problem replacing baked flour and sugar with ground, frozen and dehydrated nuts and dried fruits. Then, four months ago, after much research and deliberation, I adopted a diet full of healthy fats and clean animal products, and lots of veggies but way less fruit sugars.

There are tons of amaaaaazing raw vegan dessert recipes out there, but so many of them involve agave or dried fruit, neither of which I eat any more. I don't need to find a ton of super sweet dessert recipes that I can make (since now that I eat enough fat I don't have crazy sweet cravings anymore...), but it's nice to have a couple of options for healthy, hearty baked goods I can make and have available when I want a little something extra after a meal or something. (Also nice to have another vessel for grassfed butter when I'm hungry for fat!)

So, I dug around a little but got kinda overwhelmed by the tons of awesome Paleo sites out there, although some of them go a little overboard with the high fructose fruits and other not-everyday-healthy dessert ingredients, too.

Paleo cupcake recipe search

I wanted something chocolatey--brownies or cupcakes, I guess. I used to make raw vegan brownies all the time and keep them in the freezer--basically homemade energy bars. But almost all the Paleo brownie and cupcake recipes I could find used coconut flour, which is awesome in theory, but... I'm sorry, I don't understand how much else you'd have to use to make it not super dry and yet greasy at the same time!! I did some coconut flour experiments early into this Paleo journey that were hard to eat without lots of creamy almond butter or just butter on top... then I read the bag and saw that you can replace up to 1/8 or something of the flour the recipe calls for with it. Not the whole amount. Oops!!

So I found this recipe for "chocolate Paleo mug cake," and, having never made conventional mug cake, wasn't looking for a single-serving dish, and definitely not something microwaved. But, I loved the simple ingredient list (almond flour, cocoa powder, eggs, honey, vanilla, salt, cinnamon) and figured I could try modifying it.

After trying some variations on that and coming out with thick cupcake batter, I combined it with this cupcake recipe and ended up with a great almond/coconut flour Paleo cupcake recipe to share.

Grain-free/Paleo cupcake recipe!

Makes 8 cupcakes.

Dry Ingredients:
1/4 cups almond meal/flour or sunflower flour (you can use up to 2 tbsp coconut flour as well if your batter is too thin)
1/4 cups cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt or to taste
1/4 tsp baking powder

Wet Ingredients: 
1/3 cup honey or coconut palm sugar
4 eggs
1/2 cup coconut oil or butter (I softened mine in the mixing bowl in the oven while it warmed up!)
2 tsp vanilla extract

They are as easy to make as traditional flour/sugar cupcakes! Preheat the oven to 350 degrees first. Get out your standard muffin tin and paper or silicone liners.

1. Blend the dry ingredients. I like to use my food processor when cocoa powder is involved, since it often seems to end up forming some pretty serious clumps of dry, chalky cocoa powder among the smooth, rich batter. Breaking them up very small, mixed in with the flour, helps a lot.

2. Mix the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Stir them up thoroughly...

3. Combine wet and dry ingredients in food processor. Pulse until mixed. The mixture will be very thin. (Here's where I added 2 tbsp coconut flour to mine to make it a little thicker.)

5. Pour 1/4 cup batter into cupcake cups and bake! About 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Top yours with any homemade frosting recipe - any of these would be great! I used a variation on the coconut cream icing recipe - I sweetened mine with honey and it was ridiculously good. Like, magical flavor/sweetness.


I'm sure some of you have far more experience than I do in gluten-free baking. Any tips on using coconut flour???! Or almond flour?