Double Chocolate Paleo Cupcakes with Italian Meringue Frosting (And not-so-Paleo vegan chocolate sauce)

Double Chocolate Paleo Cupcakes

Ingredients:

6 eggs at room temp

½ cup honey

¼ cup coconut oil, melted, plus extra for greasing pans

¼ cup coconut milk

1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

¾ cup almond flour

1/3 cup coconut flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon sea salt

¼ cup dairy-free chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Place eggs, honey, oil, coconut milk, and vanilla in a food processor and process until fully combined.

Sift the flours, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl, then add to the wet ingredients. Process again until smooth. Let the batter rest for 10 minutes. Stir in chocolate chips.

Grease cupcake tins or use cupcake liners. Spoon in batter. (Makes 12 cupcakes)

Bake cupcakes for 20 minutes.

Italian Meringue Frosting

Ingredients:

2 egg whites at room temp

1/3 cup honey

¼ teaspoon lemon juice

Small pinch of sea salt

Place honey in a saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, place the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer, or use a hand mixer, and beat on high until soft peaks form. Add the lemon juice and salt and beat to combine.

With the beaters or mixer on medium, pour the boiling honey into the bowl in a slow, steady stream. Continue beating for 6-8minutes, until stiff peaks form and meringue is cool to the touch and has doubled in volume.

When cupcakes have completely cooled, top with Italian meringue frosting. Enjoy!

*Now for my not-so-paleo addition…

When I originally made the paleo cupcakes, I found them to be a bit dry. So to add more moisture and chocolaty goodness to them I made a vegan chocolate sauce and drizzled that on top of the cupcake before topping them off with frosting. Since the chocolate sauce recipe makes a lot of sauce, I had enough sauce to moisturize the cupcakes and make chocolate milk afterwards. ;)

If you choose to add the chocolate sauce to the cupcakes, I recommend poking the cupcakes with a fork a few times so that the chocolate sauce can soak into the holes and really help to add moisture to the cupcakes. 

**Drizzle the chocolate sauce onto the cupcakes while the sauce is still hot. Otherwise, as the sauce cools, it gets more pudding like and it makes it a lot harder to soak into the cupcakes.

Vegan Chocolate Sauce

Ingredients:

1 cup granulated sugar

1 ½ tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup nondairy milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Add the sugar, flour, salt, and cocoa to a saucepan. Whisk the dry ingredients thoroughly before adding the milk and vanilla. Stir over medium heat. Boil for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and drizzle over cupcakes (or mix with milk for chocolate milk!).

The cupcake and frosting recipes I got from "Against all Grain. Delectable paleo recipes to eat well & feel great" by Danielle Walker.

The vegan chocolate sauce recipe I got from "The Joy of Vegan Baking. The Compassionate Cooks' Traditional Treats and Sinful Sweets" by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. (This has been, by far, my favorite vegan cookbook! Every recipe in here has been a win so far!)