Keto Carrot Cake Muffins with Cream Cheese Frosting
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These keto carrot cake muffins are incredibly moist with a flavorsome crumb filled with crunchy pieces of pecans.
Bonus, each of these keto muffins only contains 4.5 grams of net carbs per serving, and they are dairy-free if you don’t add the cream cheese frosting.
Is Classic Carrot Cake Keto-Friendly?
No, a classic carrot cake recipe is not keto-approved, and it’s not because it contains carrots!
But don’t worry this Carrot Cake Muffins recipe is 100% Keto-friendly!
Surprisingly, 100 grams of raw carrots contain only 6.8 grams of net carbs – keep in mind that broccoli, a popular keto vegetable contains 4 grams of net carbs per 100 grams.
So the issue with a regular carrot cake recipe is the carbs from the wheat flour and sugar!
In fact, each muffin will only get a small amount of carrot, resulting in only 3.9 grams of net carbs per serving.
How To Make Keto Carrot Cake Muffins
These are gluten-free almond flour carrot cake muffins made with only a few dairy-free ingredients. No coconut flour needed!
Ingredients
- Almond flour – use ultra-fine almond flour for the best texture. Almond meal adds a gritty texture to the crumb.
- Large eggs – at room temperature. This recipe doesn’t work with egg replacer like flax eggs.
- Melted coconut oil – or melted butter, but I prefer the texture with coconut oil. It’s lighter.
- Unsweetened almond milk – you can use any keto milk like hemp milk, cashew milk.
- Baking powder – if you prefer to use baking soda, use only 1 teaspoon in the recipe below.
- Vanilla extract
- Erythritol -you can use a combination of brown sugar-free erythritol and regular erythritol to increase the moist crumb of these carrot cake almond flour muffins.
- Shredded carrots – finely shredded with a hand grater or food processor.
- Cinnamon
- Nutmeg
- Ginger
- Chopped pecans or chopped walnuts or macadamias
- Salt
Preparing Ingredients
There are quite a few simple ingredients involved in this recipe.
First, measure each of them using small bowls, so you don’t forget any of them while making the recipe.
Start with shredding the peeled carrots in a food processor.
Then, measure the remaining ingredients into small individual bowls.
Combining Ingredients
In a large bowl, beat the eggs with sweetener, vanilla, almond milk, and coconut oil.
In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients: almond flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, baking powder.
Then, gradually add the flour mix into the wet ingredients and stir until the batter is smooth.
Finally, stir in shredded carrots and chopped pecans and fill evenly a 12-muffin tin filled with a paper liner.
Baking
Bake the carrot cake muffins in the center rack of your oven for 25-35 minutes.
You know they are ready when the top is golden brown and a skewer inserted in the center of the muffin comes out clean.
Cooling
Transfer the baked muffins to a cooling rack and wait for a few hours before frosting. The muffins get their best texture after 2 hours.
If you want to turn these carrot cake muffins with almond flour into cupcakes, add my cream cheese frosting on top! But first, make sure the muffins are cool, or the frosting will melt.
Pipe your frosting on top of each muffin using a piping bag.
Making The Frosting
All you need to make a keto vanilla cream cheese frosting are:
- Cream cheese – cream cheese is an excellent keto-friendly dairy product.
- Unsalted butter
- Vanilla extract
- Powdered sweetener – you can use powdered erythritol or allulose or any keto powdered sweetener you love
In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer, add softened butter and cream along with vanilla and powdered sweetener.
Using the whisk attachment, beat the ingredients together on medium/high speed until light and fluffy.
Pipe the frosting on top of each muffin.
Decorating
You can’t add too many sprinkles to keto cupcakes because they are made of sugar.
But there are many toppings that you can sprinkle on top of your keto cupcakes to add color, texture and make cute keto cupcakes.
The best keto cupcakes toppings are:
- Chopped nuts – finely chopped walnuts, pecans, macadamia, or peanuts.
- Shredded coconut – even better, add toasted coconut flakes. It tastes delicious with the moist crumb of these keto carrot cupcakes.
- Spices – a pinch of cinnamon, ginger, all spices, or unsweetened cocoa powder!
Storage Instructions
These muffins store well for up to 4 days in a sealed box in the fridge.
You can also freeze these muffins in an airtight container and thaw the mat room temperature the day before.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I Add Extra Toppings?
You can customize this keto carrot cupcake recipe by adding some lovely ingredients in the batter, like 1/2 cup of:
- shredded coconut
- chopped walnuts instead of the pecans
You can’t add crushed pineapple or sultanas to this recipe. These are not keto-approved fruits, and it would too much raise the sugar and carbs amount per muffin.
How Many Keto Carrot Cake Cupcakes Can I Eat?
Luckily you can make keto-friendly carrot cake muffins using a combination of:
- Keto flours
- Keto sweeteners
- A small number of carrots – yes, you can eat a small number of carrots on your keto journey!
Of course, carrots are not the best keto vegetables to eat daily or in large quantities, because they contain 6.8g of net carbs/100 grams.
But we are not talking about eating 1 cup of carrots for a meal!
On a keto diet, you limit your intake to roughly 25 grams of net carbs per day, so eating 100 grams of carrot will quickly add up to 6.8 grams of net carbs that are not fulfilling. But, using 1 cup (128 grams) of raw carrots to make 12 carrot cake keto muffins is totally fine!
More Keto Muffin Recipes
If you love baking keto muffins, I have plenty of other low-carb keto recipes for you to try.
Below I listed my favorite keto muffins and cupcakes recipe for you:
Have you made these keto carrot muffins? Share a comment or review below. I love to hear your feedback on my recipes.
XOXO Carine
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Keto Carrot Cake Muffins
Ingredients
- 3 large Eggs
- ½ cup Granulated Sweetener Monk fruit or erythritol or xylitol
- ⅓ cup Unsweetened Almond Milk
- ⅓ cup Coconut Oil measure melted
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
- 2 ½ cups Almond Flour
- 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
- 1 ½ teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon Nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon Ginger
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- 1 cup Grated Carrots
- ½ cup Pecans finely chopped
Cream cheese frosting
- 8 oz Cream Cheese or lactose-free cream cheese
- ½ cup Unsalted Butter
- ⅓ cup Powdered Erythritol
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a 12-hole muffin pan with muffin paper or grease with an oil spray if preferred. Set aside.
- Before you start, make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature. If you are using cold eggs straight out of the fridge, they will solidify the coconut oil creating oil lumps. Otherwise, use butter to prevent this from happening.
- In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, erythritol, unsweetened almond milk, melted coconut oil, and vanilla extract. Set aside
- In another bowl, combine almond flour, baking powder, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, and salt.
- Stir in the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients gradually, adding 1/2 cup at a time, stirring between each addition to gently incorporate the flour and avoid lumps.
- When the batter is thick and consistent, stir in the grated carrots and finely chopped pecans.
- Transfer the muffin batter evenly into the 12-muffin case. I used a mechanical ice cream scoop to be accurate and ensure that each muffin has the same size (and so the same amount of carbs per serving).
- Bake for 25–35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the muffins comes out clean or with few to no crumbs on it.
- Cool for 10 minutes in the muffin pan, then gently transfer onto a cooling rack and cool for 30 minutes to 1 hour before eating. Be patient. They get the best texture at room temperature.
Cream cheese frosting
- In a large bowl, add soft cream cheese, butter, powdered erythritol, and vanilla. Beat with an electric beater on medium speed at first to prevent the powder sweetener from bursting out of the bowl. Then, increase to high speed until the frosting is fluffy and whiter in color – about 2 minutes.
- Use this frosting on top of cooled muffins. Sprinkle chopped nuts on top of the frosting to decorate and a pinch of ground cinnamon
Storage
- Store in an airtight muffin box for up to 4 days at room temperature.
- Can be frozen in airtight ziplock bags, preferably without the paper cup. Defrost the day before at room temperature. Can be toasted or rewarmed in an oven at 100°C/210°F.
How to serve your muffins?
- Eat plain or top with unsweetened whipped coconut cream (or heavy cream) or unsweetened coconut yogurt.
Notes
Want My Kitchen Equipment?
Nutrition
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Loved this recipe and will continue to make. Thank you!
Thank you!!
I need a good keto carrot cake recipe!
These are beyond yummie! Follow the recipes to a T and they will come out perfect. If you need to quench that sweet tooth on your Keto journey, these will not disappoint.
Can I use this recipe with mini muffins? How long would I bake them?
It should work but they will bake faster – time depends very much on size of the muffin tin – insert a pick in the center after 12 minutes and if wet keep baking checking every 5 minutes
The muffins turned out delicious.
Can I substitute the cream cheese in the frosting with yogurt?
I don’t thick yoghurt will hold as well as cream cheese I am sorry. Thanks for making my recipes and the lovely feedback! Carine
Hi!
I usually use sunflower or almond butter as a substitute for oil in muffins. Do you think that would that work well in this recipe? Excited to try it!!
Feel free to experiment, I didn’t try that but it should work
Hello, your recipe looks delicious and I can’t wait to try it out! Can I use unrefined sugar instead of the artificial sweetener? Will the muffins still come out ok?
Erythritol is not an artificial sweetener its a natural sugar free sweetener for diabetic. But any granulated sweetener works in my recipes, enjoy!
Is there anything that could be used in place of cream cheese in icing (dairy- free option?). Carrot cake is my old fave treat but I can’t have dairy anymore.
Try a coconut whipped cream, use this recipe
Is there something else I can sub instead of coconut oil? My partner can’t stand anything coconut so I need to only use recipes that don’t call for any coconut in them. This kind of limits what I make since a majority of recipes use either coconut flour or coconut oil.
You can use melted butter or avocado oil or olive oil. Enjoy!
I made these and they were delicious! The only thing I would use powdered Swerve ( or similar instead of granulated.My frosting was a little gritty. Other than that a definite hit!
Can I use monk fruit only same quantity?
Pure Monk fruit will be way to sweet, but if you refer to brand that Lakanto who blend 99% erythritol with 1% Monk fruit then yes it will be fine. Use my keto sweetener converter to see how much of each brands you need as a swap.
Would it be possible to add nuts to the muffin batter to bring down the carb count?
Sure, but you will have to rework the carb count per serve. The batter will be less moist as well since carrots add moisture to the batter.
Hi Carine. This recipe looks good. I want to give it a try, but want to make only a half recipe. I can easily halve all the ingredients, except for the eggs. 1 1/2 eggs, means wasting half an egg (which I hate doing). But also, I’m not sure how much I would remove if I used two eggs – how to make that measurement. What do you suggest?
I don’t recommend halving recipe with 3 eggs, it won’t work well. Instead make the whole recipe and freeze half of the baked muffins
what size scooper did you use? comes in a 2 or 3 tablespoon size.
I am not sure what you mean. The batter serve 12 muffins
I tried these and they are amazing! Thanks for another great recipe!
my pleasure!
These carrot muffins with cream cheese icing are amazing!!! Huge hit with my family who are not Keto! That’s when you know it’s a fabulous recipe!!! Your recipes are my go to and they are always great. Thank you 🤗
Thank you so much! So happy you love them too