Oh paleo. I have a love hate with the trend that is said cave-man diet. I don’t usually go out of my way to eat, cook or bake paleo. This cupcake creation just happened to turn out best paleo style, so there.

Anyone who’s dabbled, experimented and perhaps mastered in gluten-free baking knows that it’s a whole new learning curve. Even for a seasoned baker – such as myself, it was as though I had to begin all over again. Since baking is a science, this makes sense. While I’ve discovered that my favourite gluten-free baking flour is a blend of almond, coconut, white bean and chick-pea flour – I was in a rush to make these beauties for my little girl’s 2nd birthday party and just didn’t have the time.

So. I threw caution to the wind and stopped fighting against a mental block I’ve been having for a while now. That being the amount of liquid; in particular EGGS, that one should use when baking strictly with coconut flour. I just couldn’t get over the obscene amount of eggs I was always coming up against in recipe research and development. So I bucked and have had many failed attempts at baking with coconut flour on it’s own and became a lover of blended flours. Until last weekend.

I was in a rush and didn’t have time to agonize over the thought of my daughter’s birthday cupcakes not turning out. I vowed to myself that they would be the most delicious cupcakes ever and took 1 PLUS dozen out of the fridge to set on the counter. (TIP: I always take out my eggs about 20 minutes prior to working with them in baking a recipe. Room temperature eggs just do their eggy thing better. I know, SO technical, right?)

Why am I hurting my brain in baking gluten-free? A couple of our very good friends eat g-free and now more recently, my mom has been diagnosed celiac. Plus, why not? While gluten surely isn’t the devil, baked goods loaded with white flour and tons of sugar isn’t the healthiest.

The hot pink and turquoise icing you see? SO not paleo. Chock full of whipping cream, cream cheese and a wee bit of icing sugar as it was out of my hands by then. Or else I would have been in there with maple syrup or honey because white sugar IS THE DEVIL. At any rate, coconut cream icing would be the ultimate paleo, vegan, sugar-free icing recipe (that actually tastes good), which one could typically use but I didn’t have any arrowroot. So my friend came to the rescue with her well-loved and delectably light, fluffy and mildly sweet cream cheese whipped icing.

Before we get ahead of ourselves however – let’s get on with this cupcake business first shall we?  (Printable / PDF recipe card at the end!)