Paleo Dirtcakes

As promised, I must include failures to my list of creations, as well as my successes. These Paleo cupcakes that I made for Easter were definitely a failure. I eat food that follows the Paleo Diet about 75% of the time, mainly because it makes me physically feel better, and being a Celiac (no gluten!), this diet, or way of life, caters to my family and I quite nicely.
    I was invited to a friend's house for Easter Sunday, and since she and her family were trying the Paleo Diet, I thought that it would be nice to bring cupcakes. Wrong! I chose coffee cupcakes with chocolate icing from a free book I got through Amazon Prime. (I am not going to name the book because I am sure some of the recipes are delicious.) The coffee cupcakes had cardamom, which has a spicy, cinnamony, earthy flavor that I love. I put it in my butternut squash soup. NOT good in cupcakes. They look tasty enough:

Because of the mixture of coffee and cardamom, and the lack of sweetness, the cupcakes tasted like dirt. I thought they were awful! But I was hopeful that the icing would improve the flavor. 

This icing used avocado (I am assuming instead of butter) for creaminess, honey, cocoa powder, and a few other things. Unfortunately, the grocery store only has slightly ripe avocados, so that was probably a bad idea from the start. 

Icing.

Frosted cupcakes. And yes, I call them dirtcakes. Coffee, cardamom, and the bitterness of cocoa powder just made these taste awful. I brought them to my friend's house anyways, along with a yummy sweet potato pie, and had everyone else try them too. We actually "tricked" the kids and told them we had cupcakes (which we did!). They all sat down and ate. I almost cried with laughter as they ate, but two out of four kids actually liked them and the other two made horrible faces. My friend's son said he enjoyed them, so I left the whole batch with her. I was just thankful that some got eaten. Expensive ingredients. Better luck with the Paleo Cupcakes next time. 

*On a side note, I have made paleo cookies, icecream, muffins, and pie that are yummy. So the diet is not all that bad. =)