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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!

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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 homemade pumpkin pie spice in the batter, which gives them such great pumpkin flavor! They are then topped 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 an easy to make low carb dessert that takes less than 30 minutes!

What’s in Low Carb Pumpkin Cupcakes

• Almond flour
• Oat Fiber 
• Eggs
• Pumpkin puree
• Cream Cheese
• Heavy cream
• Sour cream
• Swerve confectioners
• Brown Swerve
• Baking powder
• Pumpkin pie spice
• Vanilla extract
• Vanilla bean paste 
• Salt

*Exact measurements are listed in the recipe card below.

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 with a spatula 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

What Flour Should I use 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.

How to Make Moist Keto Pumpkin Cupcakes

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.

Sour cream also helps keep the cupcakes moist, but you can substitute with a low carb Greek yogurt if you’d like.

How to Give Low Carb Cupcakes the Best Flavor

Pumpkin Pie Spice Mix is used in this cupcake recipe, you can use store bought or make your own.  

What Sweetener is Best for Keto Cupcakes?

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.

How to Make the Creamy 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!

How Do You Store Leftover Cupcakes?

Store leftover cupcakes in the fridge in a cup cake keeper 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 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.

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.

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.

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:

• Blueberry Lemon Muffins
• Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting 
• Cheddar Jalapeño “Cornbread”
• Blueberry Pancakes
• Lemon Poppy Mini Bundt Cakes
• Rosemary and Kalamata Olive Focaccia
• Pumpkin Donuts
• Cranberry Sauce and Walnut Muffins
• Tiramisu Pancakes

If you’d like to know more about baking on Keto, this article, Keto Baking Made Easy, is loaded with tips and info that you’ll find helpful. You might also check out my Keto Sweet Treats eBook that has 50 amazing Keto dessert recipes, all with color pics, macros and more! I’m offering it at 50% off when you subscribe to my free weekly emails here.

Shop  my favorite products on Amazon  and check out my Keto Pantry List!

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5 from 3 votes

Pumpkin Cupcakes – Keto, Low Carb & Gluten Free

Moist and delicious cupcakes that taste like pumpkin pie with a vanilla cream cheese frosting!

Recipe Video

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Author Keto Cooking Christian

Course Dessert

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 18 minutes

Total Time 28 minutes

Servings 10

Calories 252kcal

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

US Customary – Metric

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.

NOTES

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 Oat Fiber is important in this recipe, as it gives a great bread-like texture. I use Lifesource Foods Oat Fiber 500, because it’s ground to a fine powder and has a very mild flavor.

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.

Nutrition Facts

Pumpkin Cupcakes – Keto, Low Carb & Gluten Free

Amount Per Serving

Calories 252 Calories from Fat 207

% Daily Value*

Fat 23g35%

Carbohydrates 8g3%

Fiber 4g17%

Sugar 1g1%

Protein 7g14%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

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*Nutritional data is provided as a courtesy and is accurate to the best of my knowledge. Please feel free to verify it using the nutrition calculator of your choice. All data is based on net carbs, without sugar alcohol- Swerve, Erythritol, Allulose, or Monk Fruit.