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Moist and delicious healthy Keto cupcakes that taste like pumpkin pie with a decadent vanilla cream cheese frosting! Made with almond flour, these cupcakes are gluten-free and Low Carb!
These Low Carb cupcakes are like a pumpkin pie in a cupcake, they are irresistible! They have absolutely perfect texture, that’s so close to a traditional cupcake!
I use my homemade pumpkin pie spice in the batter, which gives them such great pumpkin flavor! I top them with a smooth and creamy Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting!
I’ve recently reworked and updated the recipe. This new version of these Keto cupcakes are more moist and have a stronger pumpkin flavor. These are my favorite fall cupcakes and they’re and easy to make Low Carb dessert that takes less than 30 minutes!
What ingredients Do I need to Make Low Carb Pumpkin Cupcakes?
- Almond flour
- Oat Fiber (see notes)
- Eggs
- Pumpkin puree
- Cream Cheese
- Heavy cream
- Sour cream
- Swerve confectioners
- Brown Swerve
- Baking powder
- Pumpkin pie spice
- Vanilla extract
- Vanilla bean paste (see notes)
- Salt
How to Make the Best Keto Cupcakes
Are you ready to make the most incredible pumpkin cupcakes? Let’s get started! Preheat your oven to 350F.
Add the almond flour, baking powder, oat fiber, pumpkin pie spice and salt to a bowl and whisk together, then set aside. This really helps combine them nicely and also breaks up any lumps you might have. If you don’t have a whisk, you can just use a fork.
In a separate bowl, add the eggs, sour cream, pumpkin, vanilla, Swerve, then mix until well combined. I like to use my trusty hand mixer that I’ve had now for 17 years! If you don’t have a hand mixer, you can certainly mix it by hand.
Add the dry ingredients into the wet and mix well, but don’t over mix it. Using an ice cream scoop, scoop the batter into a silicone cupcake pan or silicone cupcake liners. If you don’t have silicone liners, you can use a regular cupcake/muffin pan and spray with nonstick spray.
Or, you can even make mini cupcakes using mini cupcakes silicone liners with a mini muffin pan. Just be sure to adjust the cooking time a bit, and only cook for about 12-15 minutes or so.
Bake them for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick, when inserted, comes out clean. Mine took exactly 20 minutes. You don’t want to over bake them or they’ll dry out.
I know the waiting will be hard because your house will smell AH-mazing, but make sure you let them cool completely before frosting. Otherwise your frosting will just ooze right off your cupcakes and that wouldn’t be good!
How to Make the Best Sugar-Free Cupcake (and cake) Frosting
While your cupcakes are cooling, add all of the remaining ingredients to a bowl.
Then mix using a hand mixer, until everything is well combined. Scrape down the sides and keep mixing until smooth, creamy and fluffy.
You can either frost these by hand or if you want to get a little fancy, scoop all the frosting into a piping bag, fitted with your favorite tip and frost once the cupcakes have cooled completely.
Tips for Making these Pumpkin Dessert
How to Make the Best Keto Cupcakes
Having a great balance of Almond flour and Oat Fiber is key! Using both together, really helps give the cupcakes that authentic cupcake texture that you want. Super fine really works best, but if you have regular almond flour, that will work as well.
If you’re looking for a moist cupcake recipe, this is the one you want! Canned Pumpkin puree is used in the cupcake batter, for both pumpkin flavor but also to make them nice and moist. Nobody wants to eat a dry cupcake!
Pumpkin Puree is not to be confused with Pumpkin Pie Filling, that is a completely different thing all together. What you want is 100% pumpkin that’s been pureed and the only ingredient on the nutrition label should be pumpkin.
Pumpkin Pie Spice Mix is used in this cupcake recipe, you can use store bought or make your own.
Sour cream also helps keep the cupcakes moist, but you can substitute with a Low Carb greek yogurt if you’d like.
What is Oat Fiber? Is Oat Fiber Keto Friendly?
The Oat Fiber is really important in this recipe! I use it in so many recipes, because of the amazing texture it gives whatever I am baking! It is hands down, the best ingredient I’ve baked with and is really worth buying. I use Lifesource Foods Oat Fiber 500 because they grind it to a very fine powder and has a mild flavor.
I buy it in the 16 ounce bag here. The bag lasts a while, because you don’t need to use much in your recipes. I’ve included a list of just some of the recipes that I make using oat fiber below, that you can check out.
Oat Fiber is not the same as Oat Flour, which is made from grinding oats. Oat Fiber is made from grinding the outer husks of oats and is pure insoluble fiber. Insoluble fiber does not dissolve in water and is not broken down in the digestive tract, so it’s Low Carb and Keto friendly.
What Sweetener is Best for Keto Baking?
Swerve Confectioners has the best balance for Low Carb dessert recipes. Brown Swerve is also fantastic to use in recipes that would typically include brown sugar. It tastes, smells and feels just like brown sugar, you will love using it!
If you can’t get either Swerve where you are, you can substitute with another brand. If you can’t get confectioners, you can always grind the granular to a fine powder using a coffee grinder.
The Best Sugar-Free Cupcake Frosting
This frosting has a mixture of cream cheese and mascarpone cheese. If you don’t have or cannot find mascarpone, you can just replace with all cream cheese. Mascarpone adds extra healthy fat and creaminess, without as many carbs.
It also has a milder flavor than cream cheese, which also makes it great to use in many sauces, or to thicken a gravy, in fat bombs and other desserts.
This frosting also has vanilla bean paste because it gives a great amount of concentrated vanilla flavor with the vanilla beans, which vanilla extract does not have. It’s absolutely fantastic to use in frosting or cheesecake.
But if you can’t find it, you can certainly substitute with double the amount of vanilla extract, you won’t get the same intense vanilla flavor or the flecks of vanilla beans throughout the frosting.
Is Pumpkin Low Carb?
Sure is! There are so many pumpkin desserts you can enjoy on Keto diet, like Pumpkin Coffee Cake, Pumpkin Cheesecake Mousse and Pumpkin Donuts with a Maple Cream Cheese Glaze. They’re absolutely delicious too!
How Many Carbs are in Pumpkin?
There are only 4 net carbs of pumpkin puree in a this entire recipe, which is really not bad considering it makes 10 cupcakes!
Leftovers
Store leftover cupcakes in the fridge for several days or freeze. If you won’t be serving all the cupcakes at once, keep the frosting separate in the fridge. Then, when you’re ready to serve, slightly warm the cupcake first, then frost it.
These cupcake are SO GOOD when they are just slightly warmed. Don’t heat them too much or the frosting will melt right off! If you happen to want to skip the frosting, you certainly can and maybe heat the cupcake, slice it in half and slather with some butter, YUM!!
More Keto and Low Carb Pumpkin Recipes…
Pumpkin Coffee Cake
Pumpkin Donuts with Maple Cream Cheese Glaze
Fluffy Pumpkin Pancakes
Easy Pumpkin Cheesecake Mousse
Pumpkin Spice Bulletproof Coffee
Pumpkin Vanilla Swirl Cheesecake Bars
Pumpkin Pie Fat Bombs
What other desserts can you make with oat fiber?
So many, but you can also make savory breads too! These are a few favorites that you can try:
Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Rosemary and Kalamata Olive Focaccia
Cranberry Sauce and Walnut Muffins
Pumpkin Cupcakes - Keto, Low Carb & Gluten Free
INGREDIENTS
For the Cupcakes
- 1 1/2 cups super fine almond flour
- 1/4 cup Oat Fiber see notes
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
- 1/3 cup sour cream
- 1/3 cup Swerve confectioners
- 1/3 cup Swerve Brown
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
For the Frosting
- 3/4 cup cream cheese at room temperature
- 1/4 cup mascarpone cheese at room temperature
- 1/4 cup swerve confectioners
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste see notes
PREPARATION
To make the cupcakes:
- Preheat oven to 350F. Add the almond flour, baking powder, oat fiber, pumpkin pie spice and salt to a bowl and whisk together, then set aside.
- In a separate bowl add the eggs, sour cream, pumpkin, vanilla, Swerve and mix until well combined.
- Add the dry ingredients into the wet and mix. Scoop into silicone cupcake liners or paper liners.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick, when inserted, comes out clean. Do not over bake them or they will dry out. Allow to cool completely before frosting.
To make the frosting:
- Add all of the ingredients to a mixing bowl and mix using a hand mixer, until well combined. Scrape down the sides and continue mixing until smooth and creamy.
- Transfer to a piping bag and you are ready to frost once the cupcakes have cooled.
Just about gave up ever getting to actual recipe. There’s an awful lot of stuff to scroll through before you unearth it!
Wondering if these cupcakes stick to the liner or if they peel away easily once baked? Also wondering how many cupcakes this frosting would frost? Thanks!
I haven’t tried them with paper liners so I don’t know for sure. If you’re concerned, you can just put them straight into a nonstick muffin pan, sprayed with nonstick spray and should be fine. The silicone liners I use are amazing, nothing ever sticks to them! The frosting recipes is enough for a generous frosting of all 10 cupcakes.
I was thinking the same . If I can substitute the oat fiber for psyllium husk or xanthan gum
Hello! I cannot find oat fiber in any of my local stores. What can I use as a decent substitute??
It’s honestly worth ordering online, if you can. Nothing I have found gives the same texture as oat fiber. You can maybe try a combination of psyllium husk powder and coconut flour and just increase the heavy cream a bit. I can’t promise how it might turn out, since I’ve not tried it.
I baked some of these today and my husband loved them! I am just curious, in your photos it looks like the batter rises during baking, but mine baked exactly as I had scooped them into the muffin pan and I did use baking powder. Any idea why mine didn’t rise during the baking process?
Hi Michelle,
The only thing I can think of is if your baking powder isn’t fresh, that would cause them not to rise.
Would you be able to include a nutrition facts chart that does not include the icing? I’m new at counting macros and this would help me a lot if possible. Thank you! I’m very excited to try this recipe!
Hi Shana,
Not a problem! Here is the breakdown for just the cupcakes, 1 serving: 148 cal, 12g fat, 7g carbs, 4g fiber and 6g protein, so 3 net carbs total. I hope that helps 🙂
Thank you!!
You are most welcome!
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Made these last night! Not as pretty but satisfied my sweets craving! I made your lemon blueberry muffins for a football game watch party a couple weeks ago. No one believed they were Keto friendly!
Oh how nice, I’m glad you enjoyed the cupcakes! Those lemon blueberry muffins are one of my favorites, I actually make them all the time. Nice to know that your guests liked them too 🙂 Thanks for stopping by and sharing your feedback!!
Can you use coconut flour instead of almond to keep it nut free?
I wouldn’t recommend it with this recipe. Coconut flour is so absorbent, as is the oat fiber, so you’d have to add more eggs and liquid. It would completely change the texture and might end up being eggy. You can certainly give it a try, but it’s not a 1:1 sub, I’d say maybe 1/2 cup of coconut flour in total and nix the oat fiber. But again, it’s not something I recommend. Sorry!
Is the nutrition info including the icing?
Yes, the nutrition info is for each cupcake, with frosting.
I found an oat fiber blend with flax seed do you think that would work?
Perhaps, but it might have more of a grainy texture and stronger flavor. I really do recommend using straight Oat Fiber, and the Lifesource brand (linked in the recipe) in particular because it has no flavor, unlike most other brands.
What is that sprinkled on top of the icing? Pumpkin pie spice?
Sorry, it’s ground cinnamon. I just added notes in the recipe.
Ha, I just saw that and thought I missed it the other day. Thank you
You’re welcome!
Would psyllium husk powder be substituted for the oat fiber? I know you said that you reccomend using the oat fiber, but based on your description of it, possibly the psyllium husk powder could do the same thing?
It’s certainly possible, but since I have not tried it, I can’t promise it would work in the same way. If you’d like to try it, please let me know how it turns out.
Hey Juliann! Looks like a recipe I’d like to try on my bridge group – Is oat fiber the same as oat bran?? TIA!
Hello! It’s actually not the same. Oat Fiber is the ground outer husks of oats and it’s pure insoluble fiber, so it’s not counted as part of net carbs. The best once I have found is made by Lifesource and you can buy it here https://amzn.to/2CxuBBs.