Chocolate G.A.P.S. Cupcakes and Buttercream Icing

My birthday was a few weeks ago and I made these cupcakes for my family. I was a little worried because I didn't have time to let the cupcakes cool completely before icing them.

That turned out to be a wonderful problem to have as the icing melted a little on the bottom and made the cake super moist!

These taste just like devil's food chocolate cake to me, but you'll have to judge for yourself!

Recipe -

Cupcakes - 

• 2 cup almond flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder (I use raw,organic cacao)
• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Cream honey and butter together in mixer for 1 minute.

3. Add eggs 1 at a time and beat for 30 seconds after each addition.

4. Add dry ingredients. Beat for 30 seconds.

5. Add vanilla extract.  

6. Fill cupcake liners ¾ full and bake for 17 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

7. Set aside until only slightly warm to the touch. About 30 minutes. Then top with buttercream.

Buttercream Icing - 

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup honey
•  2 tsp vanilla extract
• Dash of salt
• 3/4 cup plus 3 Tbsp butter

1. In small sauce pan, bring water to boil for double boiler.

2. Mix eggs, honey, vanilla and salt together in mixing bowl.

3. Turn heat until boiling water to low-med and place mixing bowl on top of pan.

4. Whisk egg/honey mixture constantly for 4 minutes.

5. Remove bowl from heat and pour contents into mixer. Beat on medium-high speed until mixture is light and fluffy. It will almost look like the marshmallow mix and will take about 5 minutes.  

6. Add butter one Tbsp at a time until all is added.

7. Beat on high for an additional minute.

Note: If you want this icing to be more firm you can refrigerate for a few minutes. Too long and it will become too hard to spread.

Troubleshooting: If your icing separates during the butter addition, allow mix to sit on the counter for about 5 minutes and then continue to beat the icing. It may take awhile, but it WILL turn into smooth and gorgeous buttercream!This happens when the butter is still too cold.

I also made this in a round cake pan, lightly greased with butter and spread the icing in a thick layer on top. It was even better than the cupcakes!! So good in fact, that it was gone before I could get a picture!

Any way you slice it, this chocolate creation is to die for. ;-)

Almond Flour Rolls

A few weeks ago I found this company that makes "Paleo" bread. I looked up the ingredients and it seemed pretty simple... so I tried to figure it out on my own. It worked out wonderfully!

Here are the results!

Recipe -

1 1/4 cup almond flour
5 tbsp psyllium husk powder (flax won't work)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sea salt
2 whole eggs
1 cup warm water

1. Pre-heat oven to 300 and line sheet with parchment.

2. Mix dry ingredients together until well combined.

3. Add eggs to form thick mix.

4. Add water and mix until thick again. This step may take a few minutes, but it will thicken!

5. Quickly form into small, flat discs and bake! Don't be tempted to make them too big... they rise a lot!

6. Bake for 90 minutes.

The raw mix texture is very similar to cornbread, but shockingly it rises into these beautiful bread rolls!

I think these would be great for sandwiches/burgers! I have a batch of bacon that I am going to use for BLTs tonight... we'll see how it goes! I will post pictures of the results! :-)

Cinnamon Raisin Muffins

Breakfast was a really hard thing for me to deal with when starting G.A.P.S. - I don't like eggs, so I just didn't know what to do!

I tried a few bread/muffin recipes and they all came out really soggy. I mean, really soggy. 6 eggs and 1/2 cup of coconut flour does not magically turn into bread!

So I set out to find something to have with bacon and butter in the morning. I know, it's a rough life!

Part of the challenge was leaving out all fruit as it's not supposed to be eaten with anything else on the G.A.P.S. - I did add a half cup of raisins to the batch, but with a yield of 24 muffins per, you're only getting about 5 raisins in each muffin... I didn't think that was too bad! But you can leave them out if you want, I'd just up the honey a bit, since the raisin add to the sweetness of the muffin.

I found this cinnamon raisin bread recipe at Simply Living Healthy and converted it to a muffin recipe with a few changes.

Recipe - 

Yield - 24 muffins

3 cup almond flour - I sprout, dehydrate and grind my own which you can read about here.

1/4 cup coconut flour

1/2 cup flax meal

3 teaspoons baking soda

7 eggs, room temperature

1/2 cup coconut oil UPDATE: 1/2 cup butter, softened

2 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup raisins

3 Tablespoon cinnamon

1. Pre-heat oven to 350.

2. Mix all together and allow to sit for 10 minutes. This allows the liquid to soak into the flour a bit as the flax activates over time. 

3.  Spoon batter into muffin liners. I filled mine about 3/4 of the way full and they turned out perfectly! I did have to use two spoons to spread the batter all the way to the sides of the liners, since it is so think.

4. Bake for 18 minutes or until toothpick comes out of center clean.

 

These freeze well and will last in the fridge for at least a week (that's as long as I can keep them "in stock" before they disappear! So they may last longer!)

Enjoy!