Healthy Chocolate Cupcakes w/ Cream Cheese Icing

My mother was my inspiration for this recipe. She has made homemade red velvet cake a few times this year and it has been incredible every time! I typically do not eat sugary desserts, but I had a few nibbles to see what the hype was about. My interpretation of a red velvet cake is basically a chocolate cake with red food coloring and yummy cream cheese icing! Anything pretty and topped with cream cheese icing is a winner in my book!

As you may have noticed, these are NOT red velvet cupcakes. The reason for this…NATURAL FOOD COLORING! This recipe was supposed to be red velvet, but after 2 failed attempts with the coloring, I decided to just call them chocolate cupcakes. I honestly believe that if I had used regular (artificial) food coloring, I would have had not problem. I wanted to keep this recipe as natural as possible, but I feel beet juice coloring should only be used when the base is white. I spent close to $15 on one tiny box of red coloring, SO THINK TWICE ABOUT YOUR PURCHASE OF NATURAL FOOD COLORING! lol

The good news about my first failure is that I was able to perfect the texture and taste of the cupcake the second time around. I truly think these cupcakes are some of the best out there. The icing is pretty amazing and if you do not have protein powder (or simply do not want to use it), please use the cream cheese icing recipe from the Carrot Cake Protein Bars Recipe. I like the icing recipe below because the texture is as thick as most icing and additional protein to a recipe lowers the glycemic index of that particular food.

Okay enough chit chat, lets get to it!

Cupcake Ingredients

• 1 cup whole wheat flour Bob's Red Mill

• 1/3 cup coconut flour

• 1 1/2 cup stevia in the raw powder

• 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk

• 5 tbsp unsweetened natural apple sauce

• 4 1/2 tbsp non fat plain greek yogurt

• 2 tbsp cocoa powder, unsweetened

• 2 tbsp margarine/butter

• 1 large egg

• 1 large egg white

• 1 tsp baking soda

• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 2 tsp Vanilla extract

Protein Cream Cheese Icing Ingredients

• 2 scoops vanilla protein powder raw protein if possible

• 1 cup greek whipped cream cheese

• 1/2 cup nonfat plain greek yogurt

• 1/2 cup stevia in the raw powder

• 2 tsp Vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and then gather all ingredients.

2. Place all cupcake ingredients (excluding the icing ingredients) into a large mixing bowl and mix well with a large spoon. Make sure you mix well in order to achieve a smooth batter texture.

3. Line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners.

4. Pour the cupcake batter into each liner, about 3/4 full. Place the cupcakes into the oven and bake for 20 minutes.

5. While the cupcakes are cooking, prepare the icing by mixing all ingredients together. Mix with a large spoon until the ingredients are well blended. Keep icing in the fridge until you are ready to eat a cupcake. Put icing on the cupcake just before you would like to eat it. The reason for this is because the icing contains yogurt and cream cheese, therefore it needs to stay refrigerated.

6. Remove from the oven and let sit for at least 20 minutes before icing. As I said before, just keep the cupcakes without icing until you would like to eat one. ENJOY!