On January first, three coworkers and myself embarked on a 30-day challenge – eating a strict paleo diet. And for those of you who aren’t sure what the Paleo lifestyle consists of – it’s basically eating no dairy, no refined carbs (bread, pasta, flour) and no legumes.

Sounds crazy, right? Why would somebody do this?

We’ll, as Google’s Matt Cutts would say in his famous TED talk, “it’s only 30-days of your life and they’re going to come whether you like it or not.” Plus, it can help re-set your unhealthy eating (like ours from the holidays) and help to create some great habits.

One coworker and I have done this before and were both incredibly pleased with what we gained:

• increased energy
• new habits of healthy eating and weight loss –
• personal satisfaction of doing something difficult and new

…so we decided to do it again.

This time, however, I got a little bit more creative with the recipes. And for a coworker’s birthday we decided to make something we could all eat – paleo cupcakes.

The recipe below I found as a top search result when I searched “paleo cupcakes” but they are more specifically – chocolate paleo cupcakes.

One last thing, I doubled the recipe below because I wanted to make more than 6-7 cupcakes. And I walked away with 14 – perfect. Although, I’d add “coconut” to the name of these since they’re deliciously coconuty.

 

“If you have a sweet tooth, but want to stick with eating paleo, then these are perfect for you.  This recipe makes about 6-7 cupcakes and takes about 30-40 minutes total to make.

 Cupcake Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup coconut flour
• 1/4 cup cacao powder
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/3 cup honey
• 4 eggs

Icing Ingredients:

• 1 cup dark chocolate chips
• 1/3 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 – 2 tablespoons almond butter (optional)

Cooking Instructions:

First, start off by making the icing.  It has to be refrigerated so it helps to take care of this part before cooking the cupcakes.

In a pan, on very low heat, drop in the chocolate chips, coconut oil, and almond butter (optional) and melt together.  Stir in the vanilla extract.

With it all melted, pour into a bowl and put it in the refrigerator for approximately 30 minutes.  This will thicken the icing.

Pre-heat the oven to 350.

Next, place the coconut flour, cacao powder, sea salt, and baking soda into a food processor and mix thoroughly.  Pulse in the eggs, coconut oil, and honey next.  One of the best things about this recipe is the amount;  Everything fits into that tiny processor.

In a muffin pan, drop in paper liners and put about 1/4 cup of the mixture into each.  This recipe makes about 6 or 7 cupcakes, depending on how generous you get with your scoops.

Bake at 350 for about 15-18 minutes.  Once they are done, remove from the pan and let them cool for a few minutes.

Get the icing out of the refrigerator, and with a small wisk or hand blender, whip/wisk the mixture until it is “fluffy”.  Mix it up and get some air in there so it becomes the consistency of icing.

The icing is a bit on the sweet side, so if you want to tone that down, you can always go with 3/4 cup of chocolate chips and use 2 tablespoons of almond butter instead of the 1 tablespoon used here.”

I highly recommend visiting the website where the original recipe is found, simply because there are tons of awesome photos found throughout the entire baking process.