Bakery-Style Almond Flour Muffins

These almond flour muffins are just like the generous muffins you see in a bakery, but way lower carb and only lightly sweet. Make them with chocolate chips, whatever mix-in you like, or nothing at all!

My kids really, really love it when I bake with almond flour. They don’t know Paleo from Schmaleo. They just know what they like. And these almond flour muffins are a true favorite.

They like that these muffins are sweet, tender and filling. I like that they’re lightly sweet, packed with lots of healthy fats and low in simple carbs. I consider these a true breakfast food, and they also double as a great after-school snack.

Baking with almond flour

Almond flour mixed with tapioca starch/flour is my current favorite mixture for baking things like our recent almond flour cookies. Almond flour is already pretty versatile in baking, and adding tapioca lightens the fat which leads to more even baking and a lighter overall muffin or cookie.

These almond flour muffins are, in fact, compliant with the Paleo diet, but I find myself less and less concerned with labels like that. I’ve tried eating every which way (low carb, Mediterranean, Paleo, sugar-free grain-free, you name it), and I mostly feel best when I eat mostly plants, some protein and healthy fats.

I also eat plenty of beans, but if I were “Paleo” that wouldn’t be “legal.” Seriously, I just can’t be bothered with that sort of thing.

What to expect

The batter is relatively loose, and the muffins rise quite a bit and rather quickly. There’s not a lot of chemical leavener in these muffins, but there are 3 eggs in just 12 muffins and that helps a lot.

If you ask my children, all those eggs mean that it’s practically like eating scrambled eggs for breakfast. They know that I am all about brain food like eggs for breakfast. But they don’t need to campaign for these. I already feel quite good about them.

You can leave out the chocolate chips, or swap them for another mix-in, like chopped nuts or dried fruit. Just be careful not to mix in anything with too much moisture as that will change the entire balance.

Watch this < 1-minute how-to video of me making almond flour muffins

Just push play ▶ to watch, and then you try it yourself!

Ingredients and substitutions

Since these muffins are already compliant with the Paleo diet, they’re gluten free, grain free and dairy-free. Here are a few words about the other possible ingredients you might like to substitute in this recipe. Please keep in mind that these are my educated guesses, but I haven’t tried these substitutions so you’ll have to experiment!

Egg-free: Since this recipe has 3 whole eggs, it’s more difficult to replace them with a substitute. Generally, my go-to egg substitute is a “chia egg” (1 tablespoon ground chia seeds + 1 tablespoon of lukewarm water, mixed and allowed to gel), but I’m not really sure it would work in this recipe. I do not recommend Ener-G egg replacer.

Virgin coconut oil: If you’d like to replace the virgin coconut oil, I recommend nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening. I do not recommend Earth Balance buttery sticks in this recipe, as they have way more moisture.

Applesauce: These muffins do not taste at all like applesauce, as it’s a relatively neutral flavor in baking. If you can’t have it, you can try replacing it with mashed bananas but the end result will taste like bananas.

Almond flour: You need finely ground blanched almond flour for this recipe. You cannot use almond meal, which is more coarsely ground and made with almonds that have their skins intact.

If you can’t have almonds, you can try cashew flour. It should work great. To avoid nuts and nut flours entirely, but still go grain-free, I recommend trying my Paleo Blueberry Muffins, as they’re made entirely with coconut flour.

Tapioca starch/flour: Generally, tapioca starch has no proper substitute as it’s unique in its behavior in baking (in all the best ways). But I have a sneaking suspicion (read: I have not tried this!) that arrowroot might work in its place here.

Maple syrup: Maple syrup is considerably thinner and less viscous than honey, so I don’t recommend using honey in its place here. But I bet agave syrup would work just fine.