These delicious and healthy Coconut Flour Paleo Pumpkin Muffins are gluten free and clean eating. They make a delicious breakfast or snack.
Update March 2017:
3 ½ years ago these pumpkin muffin with coconut flour ignited my love for baking with coconut flour. It was my first recipe success with this new (to me) wheat flour alternative.
The coconut flour pumpkin muffins were moist, filling and really healthy. I was newly pregnant at the time and I had a hard time with many foods, but these paleo pumpkin muffins carried me through my work days.
Since then I've made many different versions of muffins made with coconut flour. But at least every fall and whenever I have some canned pumpkin puree, I circle back to these pumpkin coconut flour muffins - my original coconut flour success.
This is what the photos in the original post of paleo pumpkin muffins looked like:
Baking with Coconut Flour
You'll see that I switch up the topping on these gluten free pumpkin muffins, depending on my mood and what I have on hand. Pecans, walnuts, pepitas (pumpkin seeds) and even dark chocolate chips are all really good.
Another difference that you may be able to spot in the pictures, is the texture of the grain free muffins. Originally, I used only coconut flour in the recipe and you can see that the muffins look a little gritty.
Over time and after lots of recipe testing with coconut flour, I realized the coconut flour muffins had a finer crumb texture when I used a starchy powder as well. My starch of choice has been tapioca flour, because it is gluten free, paleo friendly and can be found in most well-stocked grocery stores with an Asian product section.
Alternatively, arrowroot powder, corn, potato, or rice starch can be used, though only the first of these is paleo friendly. But if you don't have any of these on hand, you can see that the recipe for these paleo pumpkin spice muffins also works with just coconut flour.
From the video you can see that coconut flour batters can easily be whipped up in a blender. Since there is no gluten, there is no risk of over mixing (or over developing the gluten), which would result in tough baked goods with wheat flour.
Substitutions: for Low Carb Pumpkin Muffins
To make this pumpkin paleo muffins recipe low carb you want to leave out the starch and use an alternative sweetener. I recommend sugar-free monk fruit syrup.
If you have weaned yourself off sweet flavors, you may even be ok omitting sweetener all together. Though you may have to add some liquid to achieve a smooth batter consistency in this paleo pumpkin muffin recipe.
Coconut Flour Recipes eBook
All the coconut flour recipe testing that started with this recipe, resulted in me writing my first cookbook. And it's full of many more delicious coconut flour recipes - even a few more coconut flour pumpkin recipes.
--->>> Check it out here!
VIDEO: How to make Coconut Flour Paleo Pumpkin Muffins
More healthy Pumpkin Recipes:
Paleo Pumpkin Muffins
Ingredients
- ½ cup coconut flour
- ¼ cup tapioca flour arrowroot powder or potato/corn starch can be substituted
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- 4 eggs
- ⅔ cup pumpkin puree
- ½ cup coconut oil melted
- ⅓ cup maple syrup or honey, agave, monkfruit syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ cup chopped pecans, walnuts, pepitas or chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375° F. Line a muffin pan with parchment or silicone muffin liners.
- In a medium bowl whisk together coconut flour, tapioca flour, baking soda, salt and pumpkin pie spice. In a large bowl whisk together remaining (wet) ingredients except for the pecans until smooth and combined.
- Add the flour mix to the wet mixture and stir until all lumps are gone. Alternatively, you can also blend all ingredients in a food processor or blender.
- Divide batter into 12 muffin cavities and top each with chopped nuts (or seeds/chocolate chips). Bake for 17-20 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Teresa Horgan
Thank you Regina for this delicious recipe! We love it. Been making for a long time now actually weekly. I am allergic to so much and these I can digest so well. Love them. Please add more types of coconut flour muffins. The pecans and enjoy chocolate morsels I use make them a real treat for some restricted as myself.
Thank you!
Jennifer @ Leelalicious
I am so glad you love these muffins! There are several coconut flour muffins on the blog you might like as well such as the coconut flour banana muffins and coconut flour chocolate muffins. 🙂
Lorna
Sorry I meant rapeseed oil instead of coconut oil!!
Lorna
Lovely moist, soft, fluffy muffins. Best recipe I've ever made with coconut flour - it's so tricky to work with! I'm from the UK so I used cornflour instead of cornstarch (I think they're the same thing with different names!) I also used apple puree instead of pumpkin puree, and rapeseed oil instead of sunflower.
Really pleased with the result, thanks for the recipe!
Regina | Leelalicious
So glad to hear the recipe worked out for you
Samina Taha
Hi there,
If I want to make this without tapioca flour, do I use more coconut flour (3/4 cup instead of 1/2 cup)? I recently downloaded your recipes & am so excited to try the different combinations. Thank you.
Regina
No need to add anything if you are omitting the tapioca flour. Or at most 1 tablespoon more of coconut flour.
Connie
Hi! These turned out delicious. Question - do they need to be stored in the fridge after baking? Or they are good out on the counter? Thanks!
Regina
Because they are so high in moisture, I find they spoil rather quickly on the counter (at least at warmish room temperature). But they should be fine a day or two without refrigeration. Personally I like to put them in the fridge and toast them to warm up. That toasty crisp is really awesome