Crab Cupcakes: Carnivore/Keto/Paleo

My birthday is in February, and that means it falls right before the Indoor National Championship track meet that I like to compete in. Sugar wrecks your immune system and causes inflammation that can lead to muscle pulls and tendon tears. There's no way I'm chancing that, especially before a major competition. Therefore, the past few years, my husband has been making me a salmon birthday cake. Like fried salmon cakes, it binds together with egg and spices, then he bakes it in small 6 inch cake pans and frosts it with goat cheese. (I will share that one separately)

This year, I had the awesome treat of having crab cupcakes instead of my usual salmon cake. I was visiting my parents and we adapted my dad's crabcake recipe to make them carnivore. I still kept in the dry spices for the carnivore recipe as most on the carnivore diet eat spices. I like to make my own version of "Old Bay" so that I can include as many organic spices as I can.

I will also share the option if you eat vegetables or if you eat grain free flours. The more ingredients you add, the more cupcakes you will get.

Makes 9-12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

3 cups fresh picked wild crab (not the canned kind which has preservatives) I used two boxes of frozen Sam's choice wild crab legs which gave me almost 3 cups.

1/2 lemon for juice

2 eggs raw scrambled

3/4 tsp dry mustard

3 TBSP melted butter

3 tsp homemade "Old Bay" (recipe below)

Option: 3 tsp parsley flakes

Option: 1 cup almond flour

Option: 1 cup tapioca flour

Option: One whole large red pepper chopped into small bits

Frosting:

2 logs of goat cheese (8oz each)

1M Wilton piping tip in piping bag

Homemade Old Bay:

1TBSP celery salt

2 Tstp. ground bay leaves

2 tsp paprika

1.5 tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp ground mustard

1/4 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp cayenne

1 pinch ground cinnamon

1 pinch ground nutmeg

1 pinch ground ginger

Instructions:

Preheat oven 350 degress.

Mix desired ingredients with mixer or by hand until bound. Sometimes by hand is better because you can feel for any shells that may have escaped into the crabmeat.

Press into cupcake liners in cupcake pan. Fill approximately 3/4 of the way full or for more full cupcakes fill to the top.

Bake 350 degrees for approximately 45 min or until toasted and firm.

Cool completely. Take goat cheese out of refrigerator to warm to room temperature.

After cool, squeeze goat cheese into piping bag with 1M piping tip. For swirl start on the outer edges and move inward as it piles up. For rosette start in the middle of the cupcake and make a lower case "e" toward the outer edges.

Happy Celebrating!!

Cynthia Monteleone is a Metabolic Analytics Practitioner to Olympians and Professional athletes, a World Champion Sprinter, an author, and mom of 3.

Creamy Goat Cheese tops Crab Cupcakes