Cashew Butter Cupcakes...Did I Mention The Homemade Candy?

Another awesome cupcake recipe!  These are for my husband's birthday - he requested a chocolaty delight, and one thing we miss is Reese's peanut butter cups.  Being Primal, we don't eat peanuts or processed candies anymore, so I decided to deviate from our Primal lifestyle just a bit and treat my husband to some homemade nut-butter cups filled with almond butter, cashew butter, and honey instead!  The cupcakes were also almond butter and cashew butter mixed together, and the chocolate icing had a beautiful hint of coconut from the coconut oil use to make it.  

This is another variation of the lemon raspberry cupcakes I made a few months ago.  The basic cake recipe is the same as those and the other cupcakes I have made, I just altered the recipe to include some almond butter and creamy cashew butter.  The cupcakes turned out great, but their consistency was a little bit heavier due to the richness of the nut butters.

I made the chocolate candies a few nights before because it takes several hours to do the whole process.  I made them in cupcake liners because I didn't find candy sized liners in my usual grocery stores and didn't really feel like searching for them elsewhere...I decided to cut the chocolates into smaller sizes to put on top of the cupcakes (which proved a little difficult and required finesse but looked soooo good) and also, it was freaking awesome to have gigantic candies like this in the house.  They are so rich, we'd only eat half at a time, but oh man, so awesome.

The Candies

- 1 1/2 cups of 65% organic, fair trade chocolate chips

- 1/3 cup creamy almond butter with sea salt

- 1/2 cup creamy cashew butter

- 3 tablespoons honey

First, I melted the chocolate chips.  Put them in a medium sized metal bowl - not a plastic one! - so the chocolate can melt without burning in the pan.  In a large saute pan, I brought 1 1/2 cups of water to a low boil.  When the water was simmering nicely, I put the metal bowl with the chocolate chips directly into the hot water, keeping the heat on medium low.  I used a frosting spatula and slowly stirred the softening chocolate until it was all creamy and smooth, with no lumps of unmelted chocolate.  

Once that step was complete, I grabbed my cupcake tin and lined it with cupcake liners.  Using a spoon, I spooned chocolate into each liner, and then pushed the chocolate up the sides of each liner with the back of the spoon.  I tried to make sure that chocolate got into each crevice of the cupcake liner, as well as keeping at least 1/4 inch of chocolate at the bottom of the cups to ensure my bottoms would be thick enough to hold the goodies I was planning on packing inside the candies.  Then it was off to the freezer for around 4 hours. There was a little bit of extra chocolate in the metal bowl so I set it aside to use again for the tops of my candies.

When the chocolate shells were solid, I mixed the almond butter, honey, and cashew butter in a small bowl and spooned the delicious mixture into each shell, leaving around 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch left to cover with more chocolate. I remelted the chocolate in the same fashion as before and 

The Cake

Wet Ingredients

- 1/3 cup frozen banana, thawed

- 1 cup unsweetened applesauce

- 1 tablespoon arrow root powder

- 1/3 cup olive oil (or light oil of your choice)

- 1/3 cup coconut milk 

- 2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

- 1/4 cup water 

- 1/4 cup creamy almond butter with sea salt

- 1/2 cup creamy cashew butter

Dry Ingredients

   - 2/3 cup white rice flour

- 2/3 cup (don’t pack the cup) shaved palm sugar

- 1/4 cup tapioca starch

- 1/4 cup potato starch

- 1/3 cup almond flour 

- 1/4 cup coconut flour 

- 1/3 cup brown rice flour

- 2 teaspoon of baking powder

- 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

- 1/2 teaspoon of salt  

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together the wet ingredients and beat the batter in a medium mixing bowl with an electric beater for around 2 minutes.   I stuck the mixture in the fridge for a little while to let it rest and so the arrow root could thicken it up a bit. 

In a larger mixing bowl, I sifted together all the dry ingredients.  I folded the wet ingredients into the dry ones and mixed them thoroughly. Then I spooned the mixture into cupcake liners in my baking pan. I spooned it almost up to the top of the liner.

I baked the cupcakes for 21 minutes until the tops were solid and I could stick a toothpick in cleanly.  I let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes before pulling them out - I have learned that they are slightly fragile.  Once again, I let the cupcakes sit out overnight before icing them.  They are much more firm in the morning, and they were easy to handle then.

Before preparing the icing and decorating the cupcakes, I took my candies out of the freezer and used my largest knife to CAREFULLY cut them into 4 pieces.  Some candies did not make it out intact from this surgical process and needed to be eaten.  It was sad and the candies shall be remembered.

The Icing

- 3/4 cup grated palm sugar

- 1/4 cup cocoa powder

- 1 tablespoon almond butter 

- 3/4 cup organic, unhydrogenated palm shortening

- 1/2 cup coconut oil





I used the palm sugar as my base for the icing and swirled some coconut oil into the mixing bowl.  I dotted the mixture with the almond butter and palm shortening.  After beating the icing to a taste and smoothness I liked, I swirled in the cocoa powder.


BE CONSCIOUS OF THE TEMPERATURE OF THE ICING.  If it gets too warm it gets too gooey and the icing gets really drippy and won't stick to your cupcakes right.  You don't want that.  Pop your icing into the fridge for a minute to cool them down if you start to notice that they are getting gooey.  But you must be careful not to leave your icing in the fridge too long, or else it gets rock solid because of the palm shortening. 





Working quickly, I iced the cupcakes with my spatula, and then wedging a chunk of our candies on top.  Sometimes a little extra icing was used, like glue, for the larger chunks of candy.  Then the cupcakes got whisked into the fridge, for the icing to harden and keep the candy chunks in place.  








Depending on how warm you keep your home, around 20-30 minutes before you serve your cupcakes, take them out of the fridge.  Keep an eye on them, if the icing starts to look drippy send them back into the cold for a minute.


Now - go forth and indulge in these, and never settle for a mere peanut butter cup ever again.

Primal Creme Brulee!

Yay!  I love creme brulee but have never tried to make it before!  Making it Primal was interesting.  I looked up a few recipes for both traditional creme brulee and also a Primal version (thus stumbling onto a great new Primal recipe blog written by a few women, check them out here!) before deciding what to do.  I decided to stick with the heavy cream versus the coconut milk, and simply swapped the granulated sugar for some coconut palm sugar.*  

The Egg Custard

- 6 egg yolks

- 6 tablespoons of coconut palm sugar

- 1 1/2 cups chilled whipping cream

- 3-4 tablespoons of coconut palm sugar for topping

Preheat your oven to 275 degrees.

To make this basic egg custard, one must learn how to make a proper Bain-Marie, or hot water bath.  The egg custard has to reach an internal temperature of 175 to be done, but they will burn a long time before that and be more like an egg muffin if you don't place them in a hot water bath.  

To make your hot water bath, you will need ramekins for the custard and then a large glass baking dish for your hot water bath.  Butter the ramekins and set them into your baking dish (to ensure that they fit and that the water bath will be able to cover them almost completely).

Break open your eggs and carefully separate the yolks from the egg whites.  To do this, I open them over a "discard" bowl, and carefully transfer the egg yolk from one side of the cracked shell to the other, losing the egg white a little bit more with every transfer.  This move requires finess, because you do NOT want to break the yolk until you've separated as much of the whites off of the egg as possible.

Once you've separated the yolks, put them in a mixing bowl.  Beat the eggs until frothy bubbles form. Then add your milk and the coconut palm sugar. Stir until the coconut palm sugar is completely dissolved.  Pour the custard mixture into the buttered ramekins, keeping the custard at least 1/2 inch from the tops of the ramekins.  

Bring a few cups of water to a simmer on the stovetop.  Set your glass baking dish in your oven, with the rack placed in the middle.  Carefully pour the hot water into the glass baking dish, bringing the water level up to the level of your custards inside their ramekins.  The hot water protects the custard and keeps it smooth, so make sure to not leave any of your custard exposed!

It took 45 minutes for my custards to cook, but the cooking time depends on the size of your ramekins.  After 30 minutes in the oven, I would check with a toothpick or cooking thermometer every 5 minutes to make sure you don't overcook your custards.  You want the toothpick to come out mostly clean - this will ensure that the custard is smooth and creamy, not dried out or crispy.  The tops of the custards should be set and the custard should jiggle a little when it is finished.

Very, VERY carefully pull the ramekins out of the hot water and cover them with some plastic wrap.  Stick them in the fridge for at least 4 hours.  

When it is time to finish off your creme brulee, pull the ramekins out of the fridge.  If condensation has collected on the top of your custards, lightly soak it up with the corner of a paper towel.  Sprinkle the 4 tablespoons of coconut palm sugar on top of the custards and either use your cool culinary torch to burn the sugar or if you don't have a torch, place your ramekins 6 inches below the broiler for 4 to 6 minutes or until the coconut palm sugar bubbles and turns golden brown.  Serve a few minutes later, so the ramekins aren't too hot to the touch. 

These desserts are such a big hit with guests!

* While coconut palm sugar is a decent Primal sugar alternative (technically we aren't supposed to use any refined sugars, so this meal is "cheating" a little bit since it is so...sweet), I try not to purchase or use it too often due to the methods needed to make the coconut palm sugar.  I don't want to have the coconut tree population destroyed because farmers are switching their trees to sugar-producing trees. You can read more about it here if you'd like to.  Part of the Primal lifestyle includes sustainable living, and unfortunately coconut palm sugar is not currently a sustainable industry.  I would not want coconut oil to become a super expensive, super scarce commodity!

Autumn Leaves Cupcakes

Another sweet cupcake recipe!  These are vanilla cupcakes stuffed with homemade apple filling and cinnamon icing, in honor of fall.  This is a variation of the lemon raspberry cupcakes I made a month ago.  The basic cake recipe is the same as those and the chocolate cupcakes I made last week, I just altered a few things to make the cupcakes vanilla this time.  Once again I have issues with making my cupcakes difficult, and made apple jam to fill the cupcakes with.  The jam was sweet and the cake is so tasty, and these were a big hit as a special birthday treat!  

Since neither of my previous icing trials went exactly the way I wanted them to, I combined the non-hydrogenated palm shortening with the coconut oil with much better results.  The icing was softer because of the coconut oil, but didn't melt as easily because of palm shortening.  This icing lasted in room temperature conditions much better than the coconut oil icing, which got a little melty, and very messy.  And this icing was better than the more solid block of icing that the palm shortening created.  The cupcakes are truly easy to make the third time around, so if this is your first time making these, don't fret, it gets easier!  The icing was once again a huge effort and mess, but that's because I got silly ambitious with tweezers and paintbrushes decorating my fool head off. 

I wanted to celebrate fall and the gorgeous way the leaves burst into vibrant colors this time of year, so I decorated green, yellow, and red leaves on the tops of my cupcakes.  The apple jam inside and cinnamon icing illicit all the flavors of fall with each sweet bite.  I found this image of some cool leaf shaped soap molds when google imaging my way to inspiration, and decided to base my cupcake design off of them.  

The Cake

Wet Ingredients

- 1/3 cup frozen banana, thawed

- 1 cup unsweetened applesauce

- 1 tablespoon arrow root powder

- 1/3 cup olive oil (or light oil of your choice)

- 1/3 cup coconut milk 

- 2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

- 1/4 cup water 

- seeds of 1/2 vanilla bean (or 2-3 teaspoons of vanilla)

Dry Ingredients

   - 2/3 cup white rice flour

- 2/3 cup (don’t pack the cup) shaved palm sugar

- 1/4 cup tapioca starch

- 1/4 cup potato starch

- 1/3 cup almond flour 

- 1/4 cup coconut flour 

- 1/3 cup brown rice flour

- 2 teaspoon of baking powder

- 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

- 1/2 teaspoon of salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together the wet ingredients and beat the batter in a medium mixing bowl with an electric beater for around 2 minutes.   I stuck the mixture in the fridge for a little while to let it rest and so the arrow root could thicken it up a bit. 

In a larger mixing bowl, I sifted together all the dry ingredients.  I folded the wet ingredients into the dry ones and mixed them thoroughly. Then I spooned the mixture into cupcake liners in my baking pan. I spooned it almost up to the top of the liner.

I baked the cupcakes for 21 minutes until the tops were solid and I could stick a toothpick in cleanly.  I let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes before pulling them out - I have learned that they are slightly fragile.  Once again, I let the cupcakes sit out overnight before icing them.  They are much more firm in the morning, and they were easy to handle then.

At this point I started to turn maniacal and prepared to make my apple filling.  I used some honey as my sweetener, making these non-vegan, but if you omitted the honey or used palm sugar, agave, or stevia, you could make these and still be vegan. 

The Apple Filling

- 4 Gala apples, peeled, cored, and cut into large chunks

- 1 cup unsweetened applesauce

- 2 teaspoons honey

- cinnamon to taste

- dash of nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Pull a 12-15" piece of aluminum foil and lay it flat in a large, oven safe sauce pan.  Pull up the edges so you start to make a bowl-shape.  Spoon the applesauce into that, along with the chunks of apple.  Mix them together a bit with a large spoon, and cover everything with some cinnamon (as much as you like) and a teensy bit of nutmeg.  Drizzle the honey over the top, and the scrunch up the top of the aluminum foil so you have a pouch.  Pick up the whole pan and stick it into the oven for at least 90 minutes.  The longer the apples cook, the softer they get, and 90 minutes in the oven gave me perfectly sweet filling.  I mashed up the chunks gently with a fork and refrigerated the filling overnight.

In the morning, I cut circles into the tops of the cupcakes and very gently pulled out a cone of cake, making sure to leave plenty at the bottom so the filling would not fall through them.  That would be bad.  I cut off a bite of cake and put a dollop of the apple filling inside.  There is a bit of finesse required to do this, which I now feel like I have mastered after trying this technique three times.  Spoon the apple jam into the cupcakes and gently replace the tops, trying not to squish jam out the sides.  That is messy and will also mess with your decorating space, so if you do fill your cupcakes with too much filling and overflows, try to clean up as much as possible so you have a dry working surface for the icing to go on!  

DISCLAIMER:

I am crazy.  It took me two hours to decorate my cupcakes this way, because I got really into painting little details on my leaves.  You don't have to do this.

The Icing

- 3/4 cup grated palm sugar

- 1/8 cup cinnamon

- 1 tablespoon almond butter 

- 3/4 cup organic, unhydrogenated palm shortening

- 1/2 cup coconut oil

- organic, chemical free, naturally produced food coloring

- organic chocolate sprinkles (that sadly aren't really Primal since they have some corn malt syrup...I have not been able to find Primal sprinkles, but these were the best I could find)

I went for a solid and yet still smooth consistency this time with the icing.  Last time's batch was too granular and stiff, so I used less palm sugar and swirled some coconut oil into the mixing bowl.  After beating the icing to a taste and smoothness I liked, I separated the icing into three bowls. 

Playing with the food coloring, I got myself three fall colors - orangey-red, yellow, and brownish green.  Feel free to play with the variations of red/yellow/blue to get the shades you like best.

Put a teaspoon in each bowl.  Other than the teaspoons, all you will need is 2-3 food artist's paintbrushes (or brand new, unused cheap-o paintbrushes with the black brushtip will be juuuust fine).  BE CONSCIOUS OF THE TEMPERATURE OF THE ICING.  If it gets too warm it gets too gooey and the colors start to separate and the icing won't stick to your paintbrushes right.  You don't want that.  Pop your icings into the fridge for a minute to cool them down if you start to notice that they are getting gooey.  But you must be careful not to leave your icing in the fridge too long, or else it gets rock solid because of the palm shortening. 

To make these leaves I started with just a teaspoon dollop on the tops of each cupcake, alternating the colors so I would have variety.  I tried to pull the icing off the spoon in the basic shapes of the soap molds (pictured above) that I was using for inspiration.  I popped the cupcakes in the fridge for a few minutes to solidify the icing.

Once the icing was harder, I took a metal toothpick and started to draw my leaf-lines.  Using tweezers, I placed the sprinkles in a neat line down all the middles of the leaves.  I got really creative with my leaves, drawing little swirls and really trying to play with the shapes.  Make sure to lift up and away with the toothpick to pull up the unneeded icing and create a clean, distinct line in its place.

Finally, grab your paintbrushes and add some of the other two colors to your leaf-shaped base.  Dip the paintbrushes into your icings and scoop just a bit of icing at a time, and really carefully drag the paintbrush over the edges or around the middle of your leaves.  Use the texture of the icing to make your leaves look more realistic - pull up at the end so the leaf tips pull up or come to points, just like in real life.  It's okay if you "mess up"...no one will know, and in real life leaves don't all look the same.

When you finish the details on a cupcake, pop it into the fridge so the icing can set.  Make sure to pull out the cupcakes 30-45 minutes before you plan to serve them, so the icing won't be too hard and the cupcake wrappers will come off the cake easily.  Give yourself a HUGE pat on the back if you made the apple jam and sat patiently through painting leaves on your cupcakes - these were a huge load of work and you should be proud of yourself for being so dedicated to your cupcakes!  People will love them!