Apple Cinnamon Muffins (Low-Carb)

This more low-carb than keto muffin recipe is one of my favorites. While I tend to create new recipes more often than remake old ones, these muffins are my go-to when I'm having a weekend morning muffin craving. They are just so darn good. These muffins are wonderfully moist with gentle apple undertones and the comforting warmth of cinnamon. Perfect for a cozy fall morning. If you can fit these in your macros, I highly recommend giving them a try. You won't be sorry.
Yield: 6 servings of 1 muffin each, totaling 6 muffins
Macros (per serving): 230 calories | 3.5g protein | 19g fat | 6.5g net carbs
Prep: 10 minutes | Bake: 35 minutes | Cool: 20 minutes
Storage: at room temperature for up to 12 hours or refrigerated for up to 3 days. Refrigerated muffins can be microwaved briefly (15-30 seconds) to bring back that fresh muffin warmth. ​✎
Warning: keto baking can be very finicky. I strongly suggest using a kitchen scale to weigh all ingredients for which gram and milliliter measurements are provided. If grams are not given, milliliters = grams.

​Dry ingredients:
  • ½ cup (60g) golden flaxseed meal ✎
  • ¼ cup + 2 tablespoons (45g) coconut flour, sifted if lumpy
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  •  ⅛ teaspoon ​pure monk fruit powder ✎​
  • ⅛ teaspoon ​salt
Wet ingredients:
  • 1 cup (244g) unsweetened applesauce (I'm using one without added water)
  • ¼ cup + 2 tablespoons (90ml/82g) melted coconut oil or neutral-flavored oil of choice
  • 1 tablespoon (15ml) apple cider vinegar or neutral-flavored vinegar of choice
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions:
  1. In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.
  2. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients.
  3. Prepare a 6-well muffin tin with parchment or silicone liners. ✎
  4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and swiftly whisk until no dry patches remain. The result will be a thick(-ish) and fluffy (or puffy..?) "batter." It's unusual. See picture below for clarity.
  5. Distribute the batter between the 6 muffin wells. The batter can/will extend above the tops of the wells, but it will not rise and overflow while baking. The tops can be domed with the end of a spatula to look more muffin-like if desired. They will come out looking about the same as they went in. See photo below for clarify.
  6. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and allow the muffins to rest while the oven heats. Bake for 35 minutes.
  7. Remove the muffin tin from the oven and allow to cool on a wire cooling rack for about 5 minutes. Then, gently remove the muffins from the tin and allow to cool for at least an additional 15 minutes. Muffins that are still hot will seem under-baked.
  8. Enjoy slightly warm or at room temperature. Option to dress up with keto-friendly syrup, chopped nuts, and additional cinnamon.
 Pumpkin Spice Muffins​: replace the applesauce with 1 cup (245g) unsweetened canned pumpkin purée and add 2 tablespoons (30ml) water to the wet ingredients. Replace the cinnamon with pumpkin spice ✎. Use a heaped ⅛ teaspoon of pure monk fruit powder.
Macros (per serving): ​225 calories | 4g protein | 19g fat | 5g net carbs
✎ Notes:
  • These muffins are quite moist, especially post-storage. For some, this may seem like an unpleasant under-baked texture. If you think that will be you, you could add 1 tablespoon (7.5g) chickpea flour to the dry ingredients. This adds about 0.5g net carbs per serving.
  • Golden flaxseed meal is much milder and more pleasant in flavor than brown flaxseed meal. Structurally, these muffins should turn out fine with brown flaxseed meal, but I'm not sure they would taste very nice.
  • I have not tried this recipe with any other type of sweetener and haven't had much success getting consistent and reliable results using granulated sweeteners (e.g. allulose or erythritol) in baking. This much pure monk fruit is roughly equivalent to 1½ to 2 tablespoons (4½ to 6 teaspoons) of sugar. If you can't use pure monk fruit powder, I'd suggest using a sweetness equivalent in liquid stevia or liquid sucralose (i.e. Splenda).
  • Using good quality parchment liners, e.g. Paper Chef, makes a difference to how much muffin gets lost by being stuck to the liners when removing them.
  • Pumpkin spice is a common spice blend in North America. If you happen to have my first book, you can find a recipe on page 78. If not, there are plenty of recipes available online.
  • Macros for this recipes are calculated with national nutritional data (i.e. NCCDB & USDA entries in Cronometer) for all ingredients apart from pure monk fruit powder (which makes almost no contribution to macros or calories).
  • Macro numbers are rounded. Numbers equal to or greater than 10g are rounded to the nearest whole number (e.g. 10g, 11g, 12g, etc.) and numbers below 10g are rounded to the nearest 0.5g (0.5g, 1g, 1.5g ... 9g, 9.5g). Any numbers below 0.5g are given as is (e.g. 0.1g, 0.2g, etc.). Calories are rounded to the nearest multiple of 5.
Picture
Pre-baking. Tops domed.