Keto Applesauce Muffins: A Delicious and Healthy Treat

These almond flour applesauce muffins are a delightful, guilt-free way to enjoy a classic baked good. Soft, tender, and packed with flavor, they're made with natural sweeteners and minimal oil, making them a healthy and filling option for breakfast, a snack, or even dessert. These muffins cater to a variety of dietary needs, fitting into low-carb, keto, Paleo, Atkins, diabetic, LC/HF, gluten-free, grain-free, or Banting diets.

Why Applesauce in Muffins?

Using applesauce instead of melted butter or coconut oil is both nutritious and an excellent replacement in baked goods. Applesauce has a high water content, which creates moist baked goods, as well. It also adds fiber and reduces the number of calories in the recipe. The applesauce helps these muffins stay deliciously moist without the need for a lot of oil or butter. All you need is a little bit of coconut oil!

Key Ingredients and Their Benefits

• Almond Flour: Almond flour is filled with protein, fiber, and healthy fats. That means these muffins will keep you full and satisfied. Look for almond flour near the specialty flours or in the gluten-free section at the grocery store. Bob’s Red Mill is usually pretty easy to find at most larger grocery stores.
• Applesauce: As mentioned earlier, applesauce adds moisture, fiber, and a subtle apple flavor. It serves as a great substitute for butter or oil.
• Natural Sweeteners: Feel free to use agave, honey, or maple syrup for the sweetener.
• Apple Pie Spice: You can easily substitute with ⅔ cinnamon and ⅓ nutmeg anytime a recipe calls for apple pie spice. Pumpkin pie spice may also be substituted, but will have a slightly stronger cloves flavor. You can use a combination of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and allspice as a last resort.
• Eggs: Ensure your ingredients, in particular the eggs and applesauce, are at room temperature before combining. This helps create a smooth texture that traps in air bubbles that will then expand when baking.

Recipe: Low-Carb Cinnamon Apple Spice Muffins

This recipe yields muffins with only 4 net grams of carbs each, bursting with apple flavor and cinnamon spice.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups super fine almond flour
• 3/4 cup granulated stevia/erythritol blend
• 1 teaspoon grain-free baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/4 cup butter or coconut oil, melted
• 4 large eggs
• 1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 ounces Granny Smith apple (about 1 small), peeled, seeded, and finely diced

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350º Fahrenheit. Prepare a muffin pan by lining it with muffin papers or spraying lightly with coconut oil.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the almond flour, granulated stevia/erythritol blend, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt until well blended. Whisk in the butter or coconut oil. Mixture will appear mealy.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, almond milk, and vanilla extract.
4. Pour egg mixture into the dry ingredients and stir together.

General Applesauce Muffin Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour all purpose or a gluten-free 1-to-1 blend
• ½ cup coconut sugar
• 1 ½ tsp. baking soda
• 1 - 1 ½ tsp. apple pie spice to taste*
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 cup applesauce unsweetened
• ⅓ cup pure maple syrup
• 2 eggs room temperature
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 Tbsp. sugar optional
• ⅛ tsp.

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Mix together flour, coconut sugar, baking soda, apple pie spice, and salt in a medium-sized bowl.
3. Whisk together applesauce, maple syrup, eggs, and vanilla in a separate large bowl.
4. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Mix by hand until just combined.
5. Place muffin cup liners into 12 cavities of a regular-sized muffin tray. Spray each liner with non-stick cooking spray.
6. Evenly distribute the muffin batter into all 12 cups. They should end up being about ¾ full.
7. Whisk together cinnamon and sugar in a small bowl and sprinkle ¼ teaspoon over each of the muffins.
8. Bake muffins in preheated oven for 22-25 minutes, or until a toothpick when inserted in comes out clean. Let cool to room temperature before serving. Last step!

Variations and Tips

• Chocolate Chip Muffins: If you’re not a chocolate fan like I am, you can also make these muffins with chopped walnuts, instead of chocolate chips. The muffins will brown significantly. Feel free to use any chocolate chips you like.
• Mini Muffins: You can make these into mini muffins if you prefer. If you want to make applesauce mini muffins, follow the instructions above and bake them for only ten minutes. I recommend this mini muffin pan.
• Even Filling: I recommend using a 1/4 cup measuring scoop to spoon the batter into the pan so you can fill the muffin cups evenly.
• Prevent Sticking: I use paper liners so I don’t have to worry about them sticking to the pan. Muffins work best using cupcake liners.
• DIY Apple Pie Spice: You can easily substitute with ⅔ cinnamon and ⅓ nutmeg anytime a recipe calls for apple pie spice.
• Room Temperature Ingredients: Ensure your ingredients, in particular the eggs and applesauce, are at room temperature before combining. This helps create a smooth texture that traps in air bubbles that will then expand when baking.
• Mixing: Mix the wet and dry ingredients separately to ensure everything is evenly combined. Be sure not to overmix here.
• Flour: Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 is the gluten-free flour that is used in this recipe and has the best results. Other gluten-free flour blends have not been tested, so please use these with caution.

Serving and Storing

These Low-Carb Cinnamon Apple Spice Muffins are perfect for an autumn breakfast. They can be part of a low-carb, keto, Paleo, Atkins, diabetic, LC/HF, gluten-free, grain-free or Banting diet.

• Serving: These muffins make a delicious breakfast or snack. Grab one on the go when you don’t have time to sit down. Enjoy!
• Storing: Keep these muffins in an airtight container at room temperature. The muffins will keep for up to 2-3 days at room temperature. To prevent them from getting soggy, line the bottom of a Tupperware container with a paper towel.
• Freezing: Make sure you remove the muffin cup liners before freezing. Place the muffins in a single layer on a baking sheet and freeze for 6-8 hours, or until firm. Leftovers can be frozen if desired.
• Reheating: Allow the frozen muffins to thaw in the fridge. To Reheat: Allow the frozen muffins to thaw in the fridge.

Applesauce Muffin Recipe (Toddler-Friendly)

These happy little Applesauce Muffins are packed apple-cinnamon flavor, whole grains, and vitamins. And all without excess added sugars! This is the toddler muffin recipe I make when I don’t have any fresh fruit or veggies in the house. I did my best to keep the ingredient list for these healthy muffins streamlined so that you wouldn’t need to go off in pursuit of any hard-to-find ingredients.

Read also: Easy Low-Carb Cheese Crackers

Ingredients:

• Applesauce: I prefer to use unsweetened applesauce in this recipe so I can control the sweetness levels, but any kind will work.
• Butter: I bake with unsalted butter, so that’s what I use here.
• Baking powder: Baking powder ensures that the muffins rise and bake through evenly.

Instructions:

1. Step 1.
2. Step 2.
3. Step 3.
4. Step 4. Bake until lightly browned around the edges and cake tester inserted into the center comes out cleanly.

Tips and Variations:

• Applesauce Choice: I like to use unsweetened applesauce that’s smooth or almost smooth. Chunky applesauce is okay as long as you know that you might wind up with piece of applesauce chunks in the final muffins! Just use one that you like the taste of to ensure that there’s good flavor in the muffins. You can use store-bought or homemade-both work fine. Sometimes the color of the muffins can be lighter or darker according to the color of the applesauce.
• Vegan Option: To make these muffins without dairy, use an unsweetened plain nondairy milk. Use a neutral oil, such as canola oil or avocado oil, instead of the butter. To make these muffins without eggs, omit the 1 egg that’s called for and stir together 2 tablespoons ground flaxseed and 2 tablespoons water. Let the u0022flax eggu0022 sit for a few minutes before adding it to the batter.
• Sugar-Free Option: You can make Applesauce Muffins without added sugar for a baby or younger toddler by omitting the sugar. The resulting muffins will be less sweet. You could also omit the sugar and add a tablespoon or two of maple syrup. You can top with a little butter, nut butter, applesauce, apple butter, or honey if desired.

Serving and Storing:

• You can bake these muffins and store them for about 3 days at room temperature or up to 5 days in the fridge.
• You can serve them either at room temperature or warmed slightly. Or cold!
• You can freeze muffins (once fully cooled) and store in zip top bags in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Read also: Keto Calorie Counting: A Detailed Guide

Read also: Magnesium Supplements for Keto

tags: #keto #applesauce #muffins #recipe