Today’s recipe is one that I have been thinking about since I have tasted the famous Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins. It blew my mind! And ever since I have been thinking of ways to make a keto version of them. Luckily, it wasn’t too hard. All I had to do was make a couple of low-carb friendly swaps and voila.
The Keto Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin is born.
How to Make Keto Pumpkin Muffins
The Ingredients
If you have done some keto-friendly baking before, the ingredients in this list will look very familiar to you. To make Keto Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins, you are going to need some dry ingredients first.
Almond Flour : Nutritionally speaking, Almond flour is better than most flours. It’s low-carb, packed with protein (6.1g per ounce), healthy monounsaturated fats (14.2g per ounce) and other essential nutrients like Vitamin E, Manganese, Copper etc (source: Healthline). And most importantly, it works very well as a flour substitute.
Coconut Flour : This is another low-carb friendly flour, made out of dried coconut flesh. It’s packs a whopping 10g of fiber, 6g of protein and just about 20% of your recommended daily value of Iron (source: Healthline). Combining this with almond flour makes for a fantastic gluten-free flour substitute. If you’re looking for a great deal on this, I recommend getting this 4lbs bag of coconut flour from Amazon.
Baking Powder: The essential stuff that makes will make your pumpkin muffins fluffy.
Salt: You might not think of salt as an essential ingredient in baking, but it is. Salt helps balance the flavors and insures that your muffins are not too sweet. Sweet and salty baby!
Pumpkin Spice Mix: The key thing here is to use a mix that does not have any added sugar. You can either make your own, or get the same one I usually use which is Simply Organic Pumpkin Spice.
As for the wet ingredients, this is what you will need.
Pumpkin Puree : Make sure that your pumpkin puree has only one ingredient : Pumpkins. If you’re not sure which one to get, try this one.
Free-range eggs : In pretty much every baking recipe (except for vegan baking), you are going to find eggs. They play 2 key roles. Eggs act as a binder, and also lighten-up the texture of our muffins. I choose free-range eggs because they are generally considered to be a healthier alternative.
Granulated-Sweetener : When it comes to sweeteners, the choices are abundant (thank god for that!). I personally prefer using Swerve’s Granulated Sweetener, but I have used other sweeteners like Truvia. They both worked just fine.
Melted Butter: For flavor, a healthy dose of fat and super moist muffins.
Pure Vanilla Extract: For a boost of flavor.
Almond Milk : After a few tries, I found that adding 2 tbsp of almond milk to my batter makes for lighter muffins. You can definitely substitute this with any other kind of milk you have.
Softened Cream Cheese.
The Technique
Whenever you are baking, it is generally a good idea to separate your dry ingredients from your wet ingredients. This is done to insure that you won’t have any lumps in your muffins and because so many bakers have told me this that I don’t even question it anymore. It seems less messy and it won’t hurt anyone, so why not.
Here are the steps we need to follow to make these Keto Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins:
Preheat your oven to 350F.
In a small bowl, combine your coconut flour, almond flour, salt, baking powder and pumpkin spice mix. Set it aside.
In a separate bowl, add in your sweetener, vanilla extract, melted butter, almond milk and whisk until all combined. Add in your eggs -one at a time- and whisk until well combined. Next, add pumpkin puree and whisk again until you get a homogeneous batter.
Add your dry ingredients to your wet ingredients and carefully fold in the batter. Once your batter is well mixed scoop it into paper lined muffin pan cups.
To make your cheesecake topping, mix your softened cream cheese with your granular sweetener until it gets completely dissolved. Add vanilla extract and 1 egg and mix until all ingredients are well combined. Scoop 1 Tbps of your cream cheese mixture into your muffin cups.
Bake for 25 minutes.
The Recipe Card
Keto Pumpkin Cream Cheese Pancakes
Ingredients
Wet Ingredients
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup swerve granular sweetener
- 2 tbsp melted butter
- 2 tbsp almond milk
Dry Ingredients
- 1/4 cup coconut
- 1/2 cup almond flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 1 tsp sugar-free pumpkin spice
Cream Cheese Mixture
- 200 grams softened cream cheese (1 pack)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup swerve granular sweetener
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degree F.
- In a small bowl, combine your coconut flour, almond flour, salt, baking powder and pumpkin spice mix. Set it aside.
- In a separate bowl, add in your sweetener, vanilla extract, melted butter, almond milk and whisk until all combined. Add in your eggs -one at a time- and whisk until well combined. Next, add pumpkin puree and whisk again until you get a homogeneous batter.
- Carefully add your dry ingredients to your wet ingredient mixture and mix using a spatula. Once your batter is well mixed scoop it into paper lined muffin pan cups.
- To make your cheesecake topping, mix your softened cream cheese with your granular sweetener until it gets completely dissolved. Add vanilla extract and 1 egg and mix until all ingredients are well combined. Scoop 1 Tbps of your cream cheese mixture on top of your muffin cups.
- Bake for 25-28 minutes. To make sure that they are properly baked, stick a toothpick right in the middle of a muffin. If it comes out clean, then your muffins are ready. Take them out, let them cool down for 5-10 minutes and enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
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The ingredients list does not list almond milk, but the body of this post and the instructions mentioned almond milk. I had to go back and read the post to find out how much almond milk to add. It said that it makes the muffins lighter. I followed the recipe exactly, including the almond milk. They turned out soggy and wet. Also, the ingredients list doesn’t list the pumpkin spice, either. I might try again without adding the almond milk.
Thank you Kim!
I will look it over and adjust the recipe. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.
I used this recipe as a guideline. They turned out pretty good despite the difficult recipe to understand. I added 1tsp of pumpkin pie spice because it wasn’t on the ingredient list. Idriss said he’d adjust the recipe but it didn’t look like that got done.
Wish I could show a picture, because the muffins came out just like the pictures in the post.
I will definitely make these again.
Hi Brenda!
I have just updated the recipe and I hope that it is much clearer now, if not let me know please and I’ll update it. I had a crazy busy schedule (with school and work) and this recipe slipped through the cracks. Thank you for letting me know, I really appreciate your input. I’m glad your muffins turned out well!