These almond flour carrot muffins are super moist, lightly sweetened with honey and even a little fluffy! These grain-free and gluten-free healthier carrot cake muffins are the perfect Easter treat. The reviewers love them! With a dairy-free option.
First up, if you prefer a grain-containing healthier carrot cake recipe, I have you covered! This 100% whole grain carrot cake is the best carrot cake I’ve ever had. Hands down.
Or actually, it’s tied with this gluten-free carrot cake, which is the same exact recipe as the healthy carrot cake, but with gluten-free flour.
If grains aren’t your thing, these healthier carrot cake muffins are awesome. I feel like a broken record, just because I say this all the time, but I used a combination of almond flour and coconut flour to achieve the perfect texture. I want my grain-free baked goods to taste as close to grain-containing ones as possible and these are pretty darn close!
People often ask if there’s a substitute for coconut flour and there really isn’t. And the only substitute for the almond flour would be almond meal (which is a lot cheaper than almond flour!) or another nut flour.
So now that we’ve got the carrot cake muffins out of the way, we need some healthier cream cheese frosting! This is the same cream cheese frosting recipe that I used in my last post on carrot cake scones.
It uses just a little maple syrup as sweetener. I really thought cream cheese frosting without powdered sugar was impossible but this maple syrup version was just as good! It’s quite thick so if you want to thin it out, just add some milk.
I’m just guessing that if you’re interested in grain-free baking, you’re not into mounds of frosting on top of your muffins or cupcakes. The amount that this cream cheese frosting recipe yields is just enough for a thin slathering on each muffin. If you want to pipe it like I did, you can pipe about twice as much as you see in the pictures.
I recommend frosting the muffins right before serving because once you frost them, they need to be refrigerated. They can sit at room temperature for about 4 hours so if you want to frost them in preparation of a party – no problem!
They just taste better and fluffier if you keep them at room temperature and microwaving cream cheese frosting sounds like a bad idea.
Obviously cream cheese isn’t dairy-free but there are dairy-free cream cheeses out there. If you don’t like the thought of using that, just leave out the frosting or use my vegan cream cheese recipe.
It’s naturally sweetened, doesn’t have any unusual ingredients and is also paleo-friendly! Half the recipe should yield enough for a nice slathering on top of each muffin. You can also find my directions for making these carrot cake cupcakes into an 8″ cake on that post.
Want an Easter dessert that’s a little more unique than these paleo carrot cake muffins? Try these blueberry carrot cake bars with granola from Cotter Crunch! They’re gluten-free and dairy-free and look amazing.
And for something with more of a cake texture (like angel food cake!) be sure to give my paleo blueberry muffins a try!
Almond Flour Carrot Muffins
- Prep Time:
- Cook Time:
- Ready in:
- Yield: 8 muffins
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups (125 grams) blanched almond flour
- 2 tablespoons (16 grams) coconut flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 2 large eggs (50 gram each, out of shell), room temperature
- 1/3 cup (75 grams) refined coconut oil, melted (if you use unrefined coconut oil there may be some coconut taste to the muffins)
- 1/3 cup (106 grams) honey
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup (50 grams) grated carrots
- 2 ounces (56 grams) cream cheese
- 4 teaspoons maple syrup
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
- a dash of salt
- additional milk for thinning, if desired
For the carrot muffins:
For the cream cheese frosting: (for paleo / dairy-free, use a half batch of this vegan "cream cheese" frosting)
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 °F (175 °C). Line a muffin tin with 8 muffin liners.
- In a medium bowl, mix together the dry ingredients (almond flour through nutmeg). Set this aside.
- In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, oil, honey, and vanilla.
- Add the dry mix to the wet mix just until combined and then gently fold in the grated carrots.
- Divide the batter evenly among the liners (about 62 grams per liner) and bake for 17-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Let the muffins cool for 5 minutes in the pan and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Do not frost until completely cool!
- For the cream cheese frosting, mix everything together until thoroughly combined. If it's too thick for your liking, add a teaspoon of milk at a time until it's your desired consistency.
- Spread a thin layer on top of each cupcake or pipe it on. Do note that if you pipe it, you'll have some leftover if you pipe it as lightly as I did in the pictures.
- Unfrosted muffins can be stored in an airtight container at room temp for up to 2 days or refrigerated for 5 days. Frosted muffins should be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
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629 comments on “Almond Flour Carrot Muffins” — Add one!
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Thank you so much for the recipe. We made these today and we all liked them very much, but they left an aftertaste- do you know what ingredient this is from? We are going to make for my son’s birthday party so just wondering how I can modify for that :)
Hi there! So happy you liked them. :) None of the other commenters have mentioned an aftertaste so I’m not sure what that could be. Could it be that one of your ingredients was a bit old? I could imagine old rancid almond flour leaving an aftertaste. Sorry I’m not much of a help!
I would like to make 12 regular sized muffins with this recipe. Will the amounts of the ingredients stay the same?
No, because this recipe yields 8. You’d have to 1.5x all the ingredients.
These were absolutely fantastic! Didn’t have me missing the sugar filled ones at all! The only difference between your picture and my reality is 20x more frosting on mine! 😂 loved them! Thank you!
Haha. Well that is the better way! The more frosting, the better (at least when it comes to cream cheese frosting! :)) Thanks for your comment!
Loved this recipe! Turned out to be super moist! I added 1/4 cup of walnuts and turned out to be just perfect. I also weighed the ingredients to be sure. Thanks so much!
You’re welcome! I’m very happy that you liked the muffins. :) Walnuts sounds like a great addition!
Came out perfect! I weighed the ingredients and the muffins are yummy! Thank you
Awesome! You’re welcome for the recipe and thank you for your feedback. :)
Hello Erin, I want to make this recipe, but was wondering if it would be possible to replace the almond flour with whole wheat pastry flour (as I’ve seen in another recipe). Do you know how this would change the texture/consistency?
Thank you for all you do!
Hi Beatrice! I’ve never subbed wheat for nut flour and had it work out. I don’t recommend trying it! Check out the second paragraph, though, for my favorite whole wheat carrot cake. :)
What are the nutrition facts on these without the icing?
I don’t know but you could use this recipe analyzer if you’d like for that info. :)
These are delicious! I added walnuts and it was to die for. Thank yo so much for sharing this recipe. :)
You’re welcome! I’m so happy that you enjoyed the cupcakes. Walnuts is definitely a tasty addition. :) Thanks for your comment!
I’m diabetic so I tweaked this recipe and replaced the honey with Lakanto Monkfruit Sweetener Golden (Golden is more like brown sugar, found on Amazon, and is mostly Erythritol with some monkfruit), using 1/3 of a cup, 1/8 cup of water, microwaved until sweetener is dissolved). I did the same for replacing the maple syrup in the cream cheese icing, since the golden monkfruit has a maple-ish taste to it.
It turned out amazing and aside from the carbs found in the flours and carrots, is low carb.
Thanks for sharing your subs! I’m sure that’ll help the people looking for a low-carb version. :) I’m so happy that they came out well. Thanks a bunch for your comment and sorry for my slow reply (Christmas chaos got in the way!).
Hi! I just made these cupcakes, but the dough was very thick and totally dry…I cooked them anyway and they turned out ok but don’t have the moist and fluff I was expecting…Could you help me understand why? I followed the recipe thoroughly though… The frosting on the contrary came out quite liquid, so I added more cream cheese…it seems I got everything wrong!!! :-)
Hello! I’ve gotten lots of reviews on this recipe but nobody has seemed to have problems with them so far. Do you by any chance live outside of the US? If so, I suspect the problem may be ingredients issues (that I’ll explain more if you do live abroad!).
Hi! Thanks for your reply. Yes, I live in France…
Ah! Then I think I know the issue. As far as I know, you don’t have the same kind of cream cheese in France as in the US. In the US, it’s firmer and less liquidy. In Europe, it seems to come in a small tub and is meant to be spread on toast. It’s also got a lot more liquid in it. So that would be why it’s runny. For the almond flour, did you use blanched and ground almonds? In Germany, there’s something that translates to “almond flour” but is actually another product that is called defatted almond flour in English. If you used this other product, that would explain why it was dry!
I’ll put less maple syrup in the frosting next time then to make it right. For the almond flour, it’s a german product called “Mandel Mehl”. Is that the wrong one? In that case what should I use instead?
You should use “gemahlene blanchierte mandeln.” Mandel Mehl is a product that we don’t even have in the US so if you ever see an American recipe calling for almond flour, use gemahlene blanchierte mandeln. For the cream cheese, you can actually use a tea towel or cheesecloth to drain the extra liquid in the cream cheese. For a recipe calling for 8 ounces (225 grams) of cream cheese, buy a 300 gram package and wring out the liquid until you have 8 ounces of cream cheese left. It’s a huge pain in the butt but the only way I’ve found to make cream cheese frosting with European cream cheese.
Thanks à million! Will definitely follow your advices! 🙏🏼👍🏼
You’re welcome. :)
Can’t wait to try this recipe but I’m on a keto diet so would like to replace the honey with erythritol and how much should I use? Thanks!
I’ve unfortunately never used erythritol so I have no idea. Sorry I can’t give you a better answer! Keep in mind that you’d be subbing a granulated sweetener for a liquid, which will throw off the proportions.
Hi did you try the keto option by substituting Honey with the sweetener
And how did it turn out
As I’m wanting to make a keto carrot muffin
Hi Mona, I’m excited to share that the minor tweet made turns out very well. As I’m writing this I’m reaching out for a 2nd one!;) OK so to replace honey, I used 1/2 cup Swerve (sugar replacement) & 1.5 tbsp flax meal. 1 tbsp water was added to thicken up the flax meal to mimic the honey texture so the cake will turn out moist. Give it a try!
What a great tip! Thank you so much for sharing that. I’ll have to give that a try!
I made this a cake! Double recipe double the carrot and double ginger. Added 1/4 cup coconut flour, chopped pineapple and pecans. Baked 45 minuets. It was awesome!
Awesome! So happy you liked it. :) How much chopped pineapple did you add? Thanks for your feedback!
This is a great recipe. I probably tripled the carrots, added
twice as much ginger and about 1/2 a cup of unsweetend cocconut. And this is plenty sweet with only the 1/3 c of honey. Thanks so much
Wow! I’m surprised and very happy that it came out well with your changes. That’s great! Thanks for your comment. :)
I may have missed it on here somewhere but can you give carb value per muffin as my husband is diabetic & would like me to make them for him
I don’t have that info but you can copy and paste the recipe here for the nutritional profile, if you’d like. :)
Can I put rice flour instead of almond? I don’t have almond flour at home and I want them now!!! :)
Hi! Unfortunately, nuts flours aren’t interchangeable with non-nut flours. Rice flour almost definitely wouldn’t work. Sorry about that!
I made them yesterday with rice flour and they are great! :) maybe not that fluffy, but the taste is great
Wow, that’s surprising! So happy that that worked out well. :) Thanks for letting me know!
if I added crushed pineapple should I use more coconut flour to absorb some liquid when cooking?
You probably would but I unfortunately have no idea of how much you should add. Sounds kind of risky. Sorry about that! Wish I could be more of a help.
Delicious! And not just “good for a healthy recipe,” –declious period. Thank you for the recipe!
FYI: Didn’t do the frosting and baked as a loaf in a bread pan.
Aww, thanks! So happy that you thought so. :) I’d love to hear how you made this in a loaf pan! What size pan did you use, what temp and for how long? I’ve been meaning to try that myself. Thanks a bunch for your comment!
My paleo baked goods never come out quite right but these were AMAZING! Hubby and 3 year old loved them too. I cant wait to make morerecipes from this site. Thanks a bunch.
I subbed the nutmeg for pumpkin spice it was perfect. Did not make the icing so were eating these as muffins. Will be so yummy with a cup of coffee.
Oooh! I need to try these with pumpkin pie spice. And a lot of it! Just to see what they’re like. :) Thanks for the tip and for your comment! I’m so happy you liked them.
Could you use carrot baby food instead of shredded carrots?
I think they’d come out too moist with baby food but I’ve never tried it! Sorry about that.
I used baby carrots and they worked out just fine.
Great to know! Thanks for the tip.
Made these tonight using freshly grated carrots.
Substituted pure maple syrup for the honey.
They came out wonderful! My kids loved them (even with no frosting), and we are brand new to this whole healthier eating stuff!
I’m so happy to hear that you and your kids loved them! Good luck with your healthier eating and thanks a bunch for your comment. :)