It was at Costco when I first saw The Paleo Chocolate Lovers' Cookbook a few months ago. Hmm, a healthier way to eat chocolate - I was sold. I was already on the lookout for "healthier" baked goodies so I "bookmarked" this book in my head for purchase on my next visit. The book was nowhere to be found when I went back to Costco. Luckily, this was available in Barnes and Noble when I visited and got it for 20% off, I think, which brought down the price to almost the same one as in Costco, which was less than 20USD.

Of course, the first recipe that I tried from this book was chocolate cupcakes. I had difficulty with the recipe as it called for so many ingredients that I didn't have in our pantry - coconut oil, vanilla stevia, etc. Good thing a lot of the ingredients were available in Google Shopping Express (from Whole Foods). The next problem I had was the price - apparently the healthy stuff don't come cheap. My bill for some 5 ingredients totaled 50USD+ so I had to wait for payday before I checked the items out of my cart. Many of the ingredients I bought were not just for one-time use (e.g. several pounds of almond meal) so it was okay.

On to the cupcakes! They tasted satisfyingly chocolatey but the cake was grainy from the almond and coconut flours. If you want a smoother texture, I think you will need to grind the flours to a powdery or at least finer consistency before mixing into the batter. The frosting was good too. It was soft and therefore did not seem cookie dough-y to me but the flavors were there. It was on the sweet side so you have to adjust the amount of honey to your liking. I also used butter instead of palm shortening simply because I couldn't find the latter in Google Shopping Express (hehe).

But cupcakes or baked treats are not food that cavemen ate so they're not really "real" Paleo. (Let me put it out there and say that I'm not a Paleo diet expert nor am I on the Paleo diet.) The author explains this in the book's foreword and in a nutshell, she says that this book is not necessarily hardcore Paleo, it's about eating clean and healthy. All the recipes are gluten-free and grain-free because her family is allergic to gluten and going grain-free has improved their well-being a lot.

The chocolate cupcakes pictured above are actually these cupcakes with the cookie dough frosting. I wasn't able to take pictures of the Paleo cupcakes using my camera - it was one of those midnight baking compulsions when I made them but below is a photo from my phone. If you look closely, you would see the sort of grainy cupcake texture I was talking about.



I'm planning to try the Chocolate Chunk Buttermilk Muffins soon. Quite interesting: they're dairy-free - this recipe uses apple cider vinegar to get the buttermilk flavor without actually adding buttermilk. I think they will go well with my morning mocha. :)

Let me know if you have healthy recipe recommendations in the comments below!