Chocolate sweet potato cupcakes, sugar-free, gluten-free, dairy-free

The inspiration for these cupcakes came from this recipe:
http://www.spoonfulofsugarfree.com/2013/07/15/flourless-chocolate-cake-made-with-almonds/

Here is my adaptation, made with sweet potatoes and with the addition of a sweet potato frosting!

Makes 12 cupcakes

1 1/2 cups almond flour or almond meal * see notes
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup pitted dates *
Boiling water for soaking dates
6 small sweet potatoes, or 3 medium, or 2 large, baked and peeled.
3 eggs
2 T coconut oil
2 tsp vanilla

Frosting
This will use some of the dates and sweet potatoes from above, plus
4 T coconut oil
1/3 cup peanut butter, or other              nut butter
2 T cocoa powder
1/2 tsp vanilla
Pinch salt

Directions
Soak dates in boiling water for about 15 min or longer. You can do this while baking the sweet potatoes.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Line a muffin tin with paper wrappers or grease very well with coconut oil. I recommend the cupcake wrappers, though.

Mix dry ingredients: almond flour/meal, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt.
In a food processor or with a stick blender, puree the sweet potatoes with the soaked dates and about 1/4 cup of the date-soaking water.

Transfer 1 cup of the sweet potato/date puree to a mixing bowl. (The remainder will be for your frosting)
To the mixing bowl, add the coconut oil, eggs and vanilla and whisk until smooth.
Add wet mixture to dry.

Divide batter evenly into 12 cupcakes and bake 10-12 minutes (note, my oven runs HOT. You may need to bake longer) or until a knife comes out almost clean. Don't overbake!  
Let sit 10-15 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Meanwhile, blend the remaining sweet potato/date puree with the rest of the frosting ingredients. If it's still warm, let it chill a bit in the fridge before frosting the cooled cupcakes.  I did the old ziplock bag with the corner snipped off trick to frost these.


*Notes
Almond meal, which you can buy or make yourself by grinding whole almonds, will make the cupcakes have a "crunchier," more"rustic" texture, depending on how fine it is ground. Almond flour makes a more refined texture, like cupcakes made with regular wheat flour.  You can also use a mix of both.

I used only 1/2 cup of dates and they were sweet enough to satisfy my kids and me, but may not be sweet enough for some people. The original recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups dates, and that's for the cupcake batter only! That makes them very sweet and taste like traditional cupcakes.  1 cup is a good middle ground, I think.

Enjoy!