The best low carb coconut flour muffins, packed with raspberries and dark chocolate. A delicious healthy breakfast for the whole family.
A lot of readers ask me about substitutions in my recipes, and more often than not I am happy to oblige. I know that specific low carb ingredients can be hard to come by, and that people have dietary intolerances or preferences. I want my recipes to be as accessible to as many people as possible, so if it’s a matter or swapping coconut products for the dairy or using different sweeteners than what I use, I want to help people figure out how to make it work.
But some substitutions are far trickier than others, and one of those is swapping coconut flour for almond flour or vice versa. It isn’t like substituting cake flour for bread flour or whole wheat for white. When I create an almond flour recipe, it’s based on the peculiar properties of almond flour and how it combines with other ingredients. When I decide to create a recipe based on coconut flour, I don’t start by comparing it to almond flour recipes. I start simply by figuring out what it will take to make the coconut flour work. They are such different beasts and require such different treatments. I just don’t see these two ingredients as interchangeable at all.
But I truly understand the reasons for these requests and many times it’s a reader with an allergy. They see one of my decadent desserts and hope it can be made to their needs so that they can enjoy some sweets on their low carb, gluten-free journey. I get it, I do. So often my response goes something like “Well, you’re better off taking an actual coconut flour recipe and changing the other ingredients to match the flavours of this recipe”. Because that is far, far easier than taking an almond flour recipe and breaking it down to revamp it with coconut flour. And as I continue to play with both flours and develop recipes using one or the other (or sometimes a combination of the two), I build up a databank of possibilities for anyone with a nut or a coconut allergy. Many of them can be then adapted to suit other recipes.
Many of my muffin recipes are almond-flour based, so I decided to switch it up one morning and create a coconut-flour muffin for my nut allergy readers. I wanted to add some berries but all I had were the freeze-dried kind from Honeyville. And it occurred to me that this would actually be perfect for coconut flour, since fresh berries have a tendency to be to “wet” in coconut flour recipes, making the end result a little soggy. You can sub fresh berries here too, as the muffins would still be quite flavourful, just a little soggier around the berries (and you should keep leftovers in the fridge for that reason).
Oh! I have a bag of coconut flour in my fridge just waiting for the right moment. Happy, chocolately muffins may just fit the bill.
What do you think of dehydrating the raspberries instead of using freeze-dried? Would they likely come out like little hockey pucks in the muffins instead of just getting softer but not too juicy?
I don’t own a dehydrater so I can’t really say. I’d think it’s worth a shot. Coconut flour absorbs so much moisture that I found it made the freeze-dried berries juicy again by the surrounding batter being so moist.
These are some gorgeous muffins. The addition of raspberry is quite impressive!
Sigh… every time I think I’m set for my next baking frenzy, with all my chosen recipes selected, you go and post yet something else that sounds wonderful. What a great problem to have!
Ha! Sorry about that. Or not!
Oooo! I love these! I am getting more into baking with different flours these days. There are so many possibilities!
Yep, many, many possibilities!
Coconut flour…why, yes! I have got to get a bag and experiment with it. The perfect muffin for a hot tea and snack now or better even for breakfast tomorrow!:)
I have an unopened bag of coconut flour that I’ve been wanting to experiment with. I’m definitely going to make these pretty muffins.
Where did you find unsweetened dark chocolate chips?
And freeze dried raspberries? This sounds amazing !
I didn’t use unsweetened chocolate chips. I used Lily’s which are sweetened with stevia and erythritol. At the end of the post, there are links to both the chips and the raspberries.
I’m all for adding coconut to recipes in any form! And the same for raspberries! Gorgeous, perfectly domed muffins 🙂
I’m checking on the raspberry can size and finding conflicting information for a #10 size can. How many cups do you actually get of raspberries?
Not sure how many cups, I’ve never measured it out. I’d imagine there at least 6 to 8 cups in the large Honeyville can.
Ok, now you have coconut flour, but then you use almond milk. Which I’m not able to have almonds. So what milk can I use? If you are wanting the almond flavor can I use regular skim milk and add a tsp of almond flavoring. I can use that.
Oh goodness, so sorry. Use water or regular milk, it will be fine. My mistake I am going to edit that!
Thanks, I will go buy the ingredients today and have for breakfast tomorrow.
My husband has this weird thing with coconut, he hates it!, but it’s more of a texture thing than flavor. Would it be OK to sub almond flour for the shredded coconut?
Sure, that would be fine.
Thanks for this recipe – yum. looks wonderful.
Would it work to use dried cranberries instead of the freeze dried raspberries? If yes, should I soak them first to plump them up?
I would put them in as is or only plump them for 30 minutes or so. The freeze dried berries soaked in a lot of moisture from the coconut flour batter and had the perfect texture.
Oh these muffins sound great! Pinning this recipe for when my aunt comes down so we can make these together!
Thanks, Katie!
These are delicious! I’ve made them several times – but read ‘coconut’ milk instead of ‘almond’ milk – duh! I think it was probably because I had coconut milk in the larder. . . However, they were moist and yummy, and disappeared fast. First time I followed the recipe exactly – apart from the slip with the milk; but the next time I only had freeze dried blueberries to hand, no chocolate drops , and upped the vanilla to a tablespoonful at the request of my husband. I think we liked them even better!
I also wanted to comment that each time I’ve made them – now on the third batch, – the quantities given have yielded way more than 12 muffins. Usually at least 24, sometimes more. I used regular size muffin cases and they look like your photographs, so I’m puzzled! But more is good – n’est pas?!?
Coconut milk, almond milk…either way, you just need the moisture content. Sounds good to me! That is funny about more muffins…mine really made exactly 12. I wonder if the coconut milk makes more volume somehow?
Do you leave these muffins in the counter top or the refrigerator?
I decided to pick the berries from my elderberry bush today, and found this browsing through my recipe collection. I subbed the elderberries for the raspberries but that was the only change I made and I came out with 17 muffins.
It’s the first time I’ve made something that contained only coconut flour and not a mix of flours, very interesting. The batter was quite dry and crumbly, but came out just fine, although I had to bake them twice as long, they just didn’t brown very fast. I’m at high altitude which could be part of it. I think because the berries are so tiny (a lot of work for only a cup of berries!), it didn’t matter than they were fresh. The dry batter made it hard to stir in the berries without smashing them, they are fairly delicate.
Absolutely delicious!! Thanks Carolyn for yet another fabulous recipe!
BTW, if anyone is wondering, elderberries have 106 calories, 17g carb, 10g fiber in one cup. They have lots of vitamins A, C, and B6 too. Because I ended up with 17 muffins, my numbers came out as 134 cal, 10.2g fat, 7.3g saturated, 8.4g carb, 4.1 fiber, 3.7g protein.
I made these last night and they were YUMMY! I’ve recently stumbled across your website and have tried many of the recipes as I am a type 2 diabetic but looking for healthy variety. I have a general question about almond flour and coconut flour- some say you shouldn’t eat these things often. I understand you are not here to give nutritional advice but would you say that a muffin a day is “safe” as far as what’s inside the muffins (coconut flour or almond flour). I’m just finding a lot of people that say eating Paleo/grain free type things on a regular basis is bad. But I LOVE your low carb treats!
Hi Deborah. I’ve seen some of those “articles” too (I put that in quotes because all of them are on people’s blogs). I have looked it over and personally I have found zero scientific basis for these claims. Seems to me that everyone who is writing about it is just quoting each other as backup and there are no true studies about it. That said, I don’t go feeding my family almond flour recipes at every meal. Probably once a day is about right, and usually adds up to 2 or 3 tbsp of almond flour per person. I have not read anything that identifies coconut flour as an issue at all, but we don’t go to town on that either. Still, I personally wouldn’t be able to stick with this healthier diet without some of these baked goods. They make me and my family so happy. I chose to try to balance these things, but to each his own!
Thanks! I limit myself to once a day at most, sometimes not even that often. Again, your recipes have made life a whole lot easier 🙂
That’s how I feel about it too, Deborah!
Made these again last night, even better this time! How should I store them? I left them on the counter overnight and I don’t eat them quick enough to keep them all in the fridge. But, if I keep a few in the fridge how long do they last in there?
They will be fine in the fridge for 4 or 5 days. But if that’s not long enough, freeze them. We keep muffins in our freezer at all times.
Can you please edit the recipe to note that the eggs need to be room-temperature? I learned the hard way that the Swerve/erythritol crystallized with cold eggs. I tried adding a comment about it to the recipe web site, but got errors about the Captcha code. Otherwise, this is the second time I tried the recipe, and it was just as good as I remembered!
I made these this morning but used fresh strawberries since that was all I had at the moment. I also use Lily baking chips. The muffins are delicious as are all your other recipes I have tried. You are my savior in dealing with my T2 dx so THANKS so much for everything.
So glad to help!
Thanks so much for this recipe! I have made it twice, and this last time I made it with freeze dried blueberries instead of raspberries…yum! I just can’t bring myself to eat eggs every day, so it’s great to have some baked goods!