Almond Flour Blackberry Muffins

Delicious, moist, and flavourful, these almond flour blackberry muffins are made with simple, wholesome ingredients like applesauce, eggs and of course, blackberries. They have a hint of sweetness from the brown sugar and brightness from some fresh lemon. Perfect for a high-protein morning breakfast or snack on-the-go!

Once I got a package from my sister-in-law, around Christmas time. The kids tore open the bright red paper with silver stars and what was inside? A box of almond flour muffins!:

Ever since I received that delicious, festive package of almond flour muffins, I've been curious about baking with almond flour and whipping up some moist muffins myself.

After a few tries (and a few more tries), these Almond Flour Muffins with Blackberries are tested to perfection and ready for you to try them.

Almond flour muffins are in the gluten-free house!🏡

These are not "keto" - go here if you're interested in keto/low carb recipes.

Here at Eats by April, we happen to love carbs with a big ol' L😍

These Almond flour blackberry muffins were inspired by these Almond Flour Banana Muffins with Oats (Healthy Recipe), Coconut Flour Blueberry Muffins (gluten-free) and these Healthy Chocolate Muffins with Greek Yogurt (Gluten Free).

If you love gluten-free muffins and breads, check them out too.

Jump to:

• 📝Ingredients for almond flour muffins
• 🔪Instructions
• 🔄Substitutions
• 💃Variations
• 🥣Equipment
• 🥡Storage and freezing
• ✅Trick for baking with almond flour
• ❓Can I use almond flour instead of regular flour?
• 🍞How does almond flour affect baking?
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

📝Ingredients for almond flour muffins

The ingredient list for these muffins is a lot like other muffin ingredient lists. Nothing too fancy or hard to find.

Here's what you'll need:

• Almond flour - look for finely ground almonds; if lumpy, you can always sift it. Bob's Red Mill has a super fine variety. I buy mine from my local bulk food store.
• Baking powder - helps the muffins to rise up and creates bubble in the batter
• Salt - salt is useful in baking to bring the taste of ingredients out
• Eggs and egg white - helps to bind the ingredients together and to get them to rise
• Almond milk - you can use most any kind of milk (dairy or not) that you prefer
• Brown sugar - I love the dark brown sugar
• Applesauce - acts much like an oil; helps to bind ingredients together
• Pure vanilla extract
• Lemon (for juice and rind)
• Blackberries - fresh

See recipe card for quantities and below for substitutions.

🔪Instructions

Here's what you'll do to make these almond flour muffins:

1. Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl with a whisk
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients until combined.
3. Add the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Stir in blackberries.
4. Add batter to prepared muffin tins and bake at 350F for 20 minutes or until done.

Hint: I recommend slicing the the blackberries in half. I found with testing this healthy muffin recipe that the whole blackberries were too heavy and sank in the batter. Slicing the blueberries allowed the muffin to bake completely around it. Also, I like to fold the blackberries into your dry ingredients before combining with the wet. The blackberries get a light coating of flour on them which will help them stay put in the batter when baking.

🔄Substitutions

After many, many tests to get this recipe right, what's written out is how I make perfectly moist and tasty blackberries muffins. Here's a few substitutions you could try but proceed with caution if the sub throws off the wet-to-dry ratio off ingredients.

For example, if you want maple syrup instead of brown sugar, you'd have to add some gluten-free baking flour to account for the additional "wet" ingredient. I found better results using dark brown sugar instead of maple syrup. If you sub it in, let me know how it turns out🙋‍♀️And be careful: almond flour is a pricer flour and no one wants to waste that delicious stuff.

• Egg substitute - if you're looking to make these muffins egg-free, you can use an egg substitute like a "flax egg" to get a similar effect as actual eggs. To make a flax egg, mix 3 tablespoon of water with 1 tablespoon of ground flax seed for each egg. In these muffins, you'd need to make 2 of these flax eggs (one for each egg.)

• No applesauce? Substitute the applesauce for over-ripe mashed bananas. You can use those browning bananas on the countertop for these muffins. You'll get the natural sweetness like the applesauce brings and a little more fibre (bonus!)

💃Variations

If you're looking to use a different fruit than blackberries, you could also try cherries (diced small); raspberries; or cranberries. (If you happen to have a ton of frozen cranberries to use up, check out my recipe for Healthy Cranberry Oatmeal Muffins).

Keep in mind if you want to try and use frozen fruit that if it's really watery, it could add too much fluid to the batter, throwing off the wet to dry ingredient ratio. This can causing the muffins to not bake properly. Drain your thawed frozen fruit well if using and let me know how it turns out if you use some!

🥣Equipment

For this recipe you'll need a 12-cup muffin tin, a couple bowls, measuring cups, a whisk or large spoon, measuring spoons and a cooling rack.

🥡Storage and freezing

These almond flour muffins are fine on the counter for a day in an air-tight container but after that, keep them in the fridge. They'll last longer - up to 4 days.

And they freeze beautifully - just pop them into an air-tight container and into the freezer. You can freeze them for up to 3 months. Just thaw out overnight or a few hours on the counter and warm gently if you want, in the microwave.

✅Trick for baking with almond flour

If your almond flour is lumpy or not "fine", you can sift it to get a better consistency. Using a fine mesh sifter, sift the almond flour into a large bowl. Push through any large chunks. Then from that bowl of sifted almond flour, spoon into the measuring cup what you need for this recipe.

❓Can I use almond flour instead of regular flour?

Generally in a lot of baking recipes for muffins and loafs, you can substitute almond flour in place of regular flour. Just know that typically, baked goods with almond flour don't rise as much. So those muffins with the nice round tops? Yeah you won't get really those when you use almond flour because of the lack of gluten in almond flour and the higher fat and protein content of the almond flour - it's heavier than regular wheat flour.

🍞How does almond flour affect baking?

Almond flour is fantastic flour to bake with, especially if you're following a gluten-free diet. Keep in mind that almond flour will prevent your baked goods from rising a ton, so expect flatter muffin tops than muffins you make with other flours.

Also, you might have to adjust the ratio of wet to dry ingredients when you're looking to substitute almond flour for regular flour in baked goods because almond flour isn't as absorbent as regular wheat flour.

I hope you love these blackberry muffins with almond flour like we do❣️

~April

📖 Recipe