These almond flour carrot muffins are super moist, lightly sweetened with honey, and even a little fluffy! They’re the perfect Easter treat, and the reviewers have been loving them for the past 11 years. They’re paleo but have a cream cheese frosting option.
Originally posted in 2014, I’ve updated this recipe with more information and new photos.
Here’s an old one for reference. They were originally called healthier carrot cake cupcakes, which was a dumb name because they just had a tiny bit of frosting on them. But the texture is very cupcake-like!
I changed the name because people kept asking how to make these with only coconut flour – which doesn’t work. More on that below.
So, these are now almond flour muffins with a tiny bit of coconut flour to help improve the texture.
Ingredient notes
Here are some notes on select ingredients. Please scroll to the bottom of the post to find the full recipe card!
- Finely ground blanched almond flour – do not substitute with coconut flour or another flour, as it will drastically change the recipe. Almond meal would work, but then you’ll have little brown specks of skin in your muffins. They won’t taste differently, though.
- Coconut Flour – before I posted this recipe, I had made these muffins with just almond flour several times. But no matter how I changed the recipe, they kept coming out greasy. So I added a little coconut flour, which helps absorb moisture and adds structure. Problem solved and they came out perfectly! Unfortunately, there isn’t a substitute for coconut flour.
- Eggs – I’ve tried egg subs in this recipe, and they just don’t work. Grain-free muffins are definitely way more finicky than regular muffins and omitting 2 eggs from a recipe that only yields 8 muffins just doesn’t work.
- Refined coconut oil – you can use unrefined if you don’t mind coconut flavor. You can use melted butter or another neutral oil instead.
- Grated carrots – pre-shredded carrots are thicker and drier, which would affect the texture of the muffins. So I really recommend shredding them yourself. I usually use this Microplane Medium Ribbon Grater when grating carrots for carrot cake and other treats, and it works great here. The photographer grated them more coarsely than I did in the original photos, and that’s why the muffins in the new photos look a bit different.
Can I just use all coconut flour?
I had one commenter say her muffins came out dry, despite following the recipe – except for using coconut flour in place of almond flour.
That doesn’t work. Coconut flour isn’t interchangeable with any other type of flour.
It’s SO much more absorbent than other flours. Please follow the recipe if you want it to work.
If you want to only use coconut flour, you have to find a recipe already calling for that.
Can I add walnuts, raisins or pineapple?
I’ve tried it out with 1/3 cup of raisins and 1/4 cup walnuts. That worked great.
One commenter said that they had used crushed pineapple, but they didn’t come back to say how much they added or if they made other adjustments.
I don’t see how that’d work. Even if you pat it dry, I just think it’d make the muffins soggy.
Another commented said they added 1/3 cup of fresh chopped pineapple and had good results. I think that’s more likely to work out better than crushed pineapple.
How to make them
- In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.
- In another bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients until smooth.
- Slowly mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
- Stir until just combined.
- Gently fold in the grated carrots.
- Divide the batter evenly between the muffin cups.
- Bake until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Let the muffins cool in the pan before transferring them to a wire rack.
Tips for success
Here are a few key tips to ensure your muffins turn out perfectly every time.
- Use room temperature eggs – this helps them incorporate more evenly into the batter.
- Finely grate the carrots – larger pieces won’t blend as well and can create a dense texture.
- Measure the flours correctly – coconut flour is highly absorbent, so too much or too little can change the texture. Please use a scale!
- Let them cool completely – they will be delicate when warm but firm up as they cool.
Can I make it as a layer cake?
I’ve made this recipe several times as a layer cake, and the result is a bit too dense for my liking. I’ve often had this issue when trying to use a grain-free muffin recipe for a cake.
Grain-free flours, like almond or coconut flour, tend to make muffins denser and more compact. Muffins can handle this because they’re baked in small portions, but a layer cake needs a lighter, more structured crumb to support stacking and layering.
Another reason is that many grain-free recipes rely on ingredients like eggs, nut flours, or coconut products, which hold a lot of moisture. While this works for muffins, a cake made with the same formula could turn out too wet, heavy, or unstable when layered.
Muffins also don’t need as much rise as a cake, so a muffin recipe may not have enough leavening agents (like baking soda or baking powder) to create a tall, fluffy cake. Cakes require more aeration to achieve a tender crumb that can support frosting.
If you want to try, anyway, you can double the recipe and baked it in two 8″ (22 cm) pans for 17 minutes.
How to make ahead, store and freeze
Once baked, the muffins can be kept at room temperature in an airtight container for up to two days. If you need to store them for longer, place them in the refrigerator, where they’ll stay fresh for up to four days.
To extend their shelf life, wrap individual muffins in plastic wrap and store them in a freezer-safe bag. They can be kept frozen for up to three months. When ready to eat, simply thaw at room temperature or warm them slightly in the microwave.
Troubleshooting
- Muffins are too dry or dense – check your coconut flour measurement and make sure you didn’t overbake.
- Muffins are too wet – did you use finely ground blanched almond flour? If your almond flour isn’t finely ground, it won’t be as absorbent, resulting in wetter, greasier muffins.
- Muffins didn’t rise – ensure your baking soda is fresh and that you used large eggs.
Other gluten-free Easter desserts
These Birds Nest Cookies are also paleo (and vegan!) and super cute for Easter.
This Gluten-free Carrot Cake is super moist and the best carrot cake I’ve ever had.
This Italian Lemon Almond Flour Cake isn’t exactly healthy, but people love it.
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 oil1, melted
- 1/3 cup (106 grams) honey or maple syrup
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup (50 grams) grated carrots2
- optional - 3 tablespoons finely chopped walnuts for the muffin tops
- 2 ounces (56 grams) cream cheese
- 4 teaspoons maple syrup
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- a dash of salt
For the carrot muffins:
For the optional 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 or maple syrup, 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 top with chopped walnuts, if using.
- 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. Spread a thin layer on top of each cupcake.
- 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.
Notes
Join over 12,400 readers and sweeten up
your inbox with new posts for free!
This subscription is free of charge and can be canceled at any time.
626 comments on “Almond Flour Carrot Muffins” — Add one!
30 comments are awaiting moderation!
Thank you for this most scrumptious muffin recipe EVER !!!(even without frosting!) I wanted to make a gluten free recipe for a friend but I will definitely make this recipe again for my family. I was a little worried that the batter was kinda thick but they cooked up moist. I used Bob Mill’s super fine natural almond flour, raw honey and added about 1/4 cup chopped fresh pineapple, handful of coconut and chopped walnuts. Yum! My husband agreed too!!
Yay! I’m so happy that you liked them! And it’s great to know that some added pineapple works well. :) Thanks a bunch for your comment!
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.