You guys are going to get tired of me saying that I’ve created my favorite baked good. I exclaimed on my last post about my Chocolate Covered Cookie Dough Cups that they were my favorite healthy treat I’d made.

I may have to rethink that for these. Maybe it’s just that I’m addicted to chocolate. Hi, my name is Sarah and I’m a choc-o-holic. Ok, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s get back to these cupcakes, shall we?

I had been searching for a grain-free cake recipe that I could make for the hubs’ birthday, but most of the recipes I’d found had ingredients that I didn’t have on hand or used a large amount of coconut flour, which I am not a huge fan of (I have an aversion to the chalky flavor it can produce). So, I took my own recipe for my One Minute Chocolate Mug Cake and made it large enough to make 12 cupcakes (and this time I baked them in the oven instead of the microwave). Problem solved!

Again for the frosting, many of the recipes I found used ingredients I didn’t have on hand or used a large amount of coconut oil. Now, I love coconut oil…but I didn’t want to frost my cupcakes with it. Instead I went off of this recipe on Chocolate Covered Katie and tweaked it just a bit.

The result was magical. Seriously. The frosting is light and airy, almost refreshing. I am not a fan of overly sweet and sugary frostings, but the hubs is, and he still thought this was better. The way the frosting matches with the cupcake is awesome. The cake itself is somewhere between a light, fluffy cake and a fudgy brownie. Perfectly in the middle. The hubs took a few cupcakes to work and let three different people try them and the response from each was extremely positive. So I’ll call this recipe a success

Ingredients:

For the Cupcakes:
• 3/4 cup almond butter
• 1/2 cup coconut sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 4 eggs
• 1/8 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp baking soda

For the Frosting:
• 1/4 cup butter, softened *
• 1 can coconut milk (only the solids)
• 1 TBSP cocoa powder
• 2 TBSP maple syrup or honey
• 1 tsp vanilla

* You can substitute coconut oil if you prefer

Directions:

1. At least 8 hours before making the frosting, place your can of coconut milk in the fridge. This will help the solids separate from the water. If your house is cool enough, you can skip this step (our house was just below 70° and the solids were already separated in the can).
2. Preheat your oven to 325° and place your muffin liners in the pan. You might want to spray with non-stick spray, however I did not and I didn’t have trouble with sticking.
3. In a mixer fixed with a whisk attachment, mix together almond butter, coconut sugar, and cocoa powder until well blended. Add in eggs, sea salt, vanilla, and baking soda and beat until well mixed. Your batter will be thicker than regular cake batter.
4. Spoon batter into muffin liners, filling 2/3 full. Bake in your preheated oven for 15-20 minutes (mine were done at 17 minutes).
5. While the cupcakes are baking, clean your mixer bowl and attachment so you can re-use them to make the frosting. In the bowl, add the coconut milk solids and softened butter and whisk until well blended. Add in cocoa powder, maple syrup, and vanilla and beat again just until blended.
6. If you want to frost the cupcakes like normal, you can place the entire mixing bowl in the fridge for about 2 hours to allow the frosting to thicken and the cupcakes to cool before frosting.
7. If you want to pipe on the frosting like I did, it is easiest to go ahead and pour the frosting into your piping bag and place that in the fridge for 2 hours to thicken and allow the cupcakes to cool. I find it easiest to fold the piping bag around the rim of a cup and just poor the frosting in there.

Recipe makes approximately 12 cupcakes

This recipe was shared on Allergy-Free Wednesdays, Whatcha’ Whipped Up Wednesdays