Primal Spice Cupcakes w/ Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Primal Spice Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Perfect to make ahead and serve at a holiday party: these paleo friendly cupcakes just happen to be gluten and starch free. They are also made without refined sugars, which turns the sweet down a few notches. Your guests will love them and then you can tell them that they are gluten-free. Unless your guests are like half of my friends and already on a Paleo diet and so the only way you can get them to even try one teensy tiny mini cupcake is to tell them it’s grain and starch free. But then they will have three or four more because they are just that good.

If you know me you know that gluten and sugar-free are not high on my list of important things. I’m happy to bake with AP flour and cane sugar. Moderation in everything is my motto (and by motto I mean the thing I say but don’t always do, or rather, I take my moderation in moderation). But this spring when I was testing baked goods for a friend’s baby shower, where several of the guests were avoiding wheat, I made chocolate quinoa cupcakes and a batch of spice cupcakes using the same blender technique.

But the spice didn’t seem right in the spring so I put the recipe away and almost forgot about it entirely. The best thing about these cupcakes is they are even better the next day after the spices have matured and mellowed but the cupcake is still just as moist, and oh my goodness now I wish it was tomorrow! All that egg and butter. Though you could sub coconut oil for butter and almond milk for the milk if dairy’s not your thing, but you gotta have the egg-I attempted a vegan version and it didn’t work out so well and, of course, then this frosting is out too.

Primal Spice Cupcakes w/ Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

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Ingredients

  

• 1/3 cup milk
• 4 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups tightly packed and cooled cooked quinoa
• ¾ cup melted and cooled butter
• 1 ½ cups coconut sugar I would use less if I was using a different sweeter sweetener
• 1 cup coconut flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon allspice
• ¼ teaspoon cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• ¼ tsp. ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp garam masala

Instructions

 

• Pre-Heat Oven to 350
• Prepare muffin tins
• In a food processor, vitamix, or blender combine milk, eggs, and vanilla. Blend to combine.
• Add quinoa and butter and process until smooth (this will take less than a minute in a Vitamix but considerably longer in a food processor)
• Add coconut sugar, coconut flour, baking powder, baking soda, and spices. Blend to combine.
• Pour batter into prepared cupcake pans and bake on the center rack for 15-20 minutes.
• Bake until toothpick comes out clean and centers are firm
• Allow to cool for five minutes before turning out cupcakes onto a wire rack to cool completely.
• Frost as close to serving as possible.

Notes

Makes 48 mini muffins if you scrape the blender carefully, slightly less if you can’t be bothered

Tried this recipe?Mention @recipefiction or tag #recipefiction!

Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

just barely adapted from Primal Palate

• 1 Tbsp. Vanilla
• 1/2 cup Grade B Maple Syrup
• 16 oz. Cream Cheese

Allow cream cheese to come up to room temperature. Whip ingredients together using a hand mixer or stand mixer. Use or refrigerate immediately.