Chocolate Cupcakes

I love Elana's Pantry! She has the best recipes! So I wasn't too happy with my Cranberry Apple "cheese"cake so I decided to whip up a batch of these Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes. I decided to use her recipe for the Peanut Butter Icing found in her cookbook The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook (page 124).

I was inspired to make the chocolate/peanut butter frosting combo by my visit to Abbey Girl Sweets in downtown Cincinnati, OH. It was a particularly rough week this past week and I needed a cupcake pick-me-up so I took a little break from work and found myself at Abbey Girls. It's a great bakery and I had an amazing chocolate cupcake with peanut butter icing. Thus I was inspired to make a more healthful (and sort-of paleo) version. It still needs some work and I need to work on the icing, but I was pleased overall. Next time I might get a Newman's Own dark chocolate almond butter cup, cut it in quarters and top each cupcake (Abbey Girl cupcakes does that with the chocolate/pb cupcake).

Just a quick note on agave .. though I like dessert, I don't like things that are too sweet, so typically I half the amount of agave in a recipe. I halved the amount of agave in the cupcakes and the frosting and think it turned out pretty good.

oh, and did I mention these are ridiculously easy and quick to make?

Cupcakes
¼ cup coconut flour
¼ cup cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
3 eggs
¼ cup grapeseed oil
½ cup agave nectar

In a medium bowl, combine coconut flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda
In a large bowl, blend together eggs, oil and agave
Blend dry ingredients into wet thoroughly
Line a cupcake tin with paper liners and scoop a scant ¼ cup into each
Bake at 375° for 20-22 minutes
Cool and cover with frosting

Peanut Butter Frosting:
1c peanut butter (I used natural peanut butter)
1/2c agave
1/2t sea salt
1 t vanilla

In a large bowl whip the pb and agave until smooth with a handheld mixer. Blend in the salt and vanilla and continue blending until rich and creamy.