Delicious paleo pumpkin muffins that everybody will love! These Paleo Pumpkin Muffins are super easy to make, gluten-free, grain-free, vegan and AIP compliant making them perfect for most people.
This recipe is also coconut free and cassava free to be the most allergy friendly as possible.
Here is my paleo pumpkin muffins a.k.a gingerbread muffins recipe! Yes, this recipe was initially named gingerbread muffins. But I changed the name of my gingerbread muffins to paleo pumpkin muffins when I discovered that, although this is how we call them in France, it’s not how they are called in other countries.
So, some of my readers were asking me for a muffin recipe using pumpkin purée because they didn't realise this one was in fact what they were looking for. Anyway, however you call these muffins I promise you it won't change how they taste! lol
This recipe has been especially created for AIPers. But even if you are not following the autoimmune paleo diet, I promise you that you will love it! And even though it is still treat (and of course you shouldn't eat too many treats) I think it is a pretty healthy treat. Hope you will enjoy!
Notes about the ingredients
Pumpkin purée
You can either use canned pumpkin purée or homemade pumpkin purée (I just take cooked pumpkin or butternut squash and put it in the blender with the other liquid ingredients from the recipe).
Tigernut flour (or almond flour for those who are not on AIP nor nut free)
If you don't know what is tigernut flour and want to learn all about it, you can read The complete guide to tigernut flour.
If you are on AIP and still in the elimination phase, you have to use tigernut flour (because almond flour is not AIP compliant).
Those who are not on AIP nor allergic to nuts can use almond flour instead of tigernut flour.
Are there any AIP compliant substitutions?
Unfortunately there are no possible substitution for the tigernut flour if you are on AIP and still in the elimination phase. Why? Because all the other AIP compliant flours have very different texture and they all need their own amount of liquid. So it is not possible to replace the tigernut flour with another flour without altering the entire recipe.
Arrowroot
It is a starch. If you are not cassava intolerant, you can substitute it with tapioca starch (also called tapioca flour).
Other possible substitutions, only if you are not on AIP nor Paleo diets: you can use potato starch or corn starch instead of arrowroot.
Maple syrup
If you want to reduce the maple syrup quantity in this recipe, I suggest replacing it by same quantity of oil of your choice (for example: ⅓ cup (80 ml) maple syrup + 3 tablespoon oil instead of ½ cup maple syrup)
Spices
This pumpkin muffin recipe uses a combination of cinnamon, cloves and ginger.
Please note that this recipe has been created for people on the autoimmune paleo diet which doesn't allow all spices. Although I am not an AIPer myself I love this recipe the way it is.
But if you are not on an AIP diet feel free to use a pumpkin spice blend of your choice.
Also, feel free to adjust the spices quantities to your own taste and omit one of them if you are intolerant.
For the complete list of ingredients for this paleo pumpkin muffin recipe, please see the recipe below.
Nut allergy?
Good news if you have a nut allergy and need a nut-free version, you can make these muffins with tigernut flour. Because tigernut is not a nut!
How to make these pumpkin muffins
- In a blender combine the maple syrup, pumpkin puree, lemon juice (or ACV) and vanilla. Blend until combined.
- In a large bowl, combine the tigernut flour (or almond flour), arrow root, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Stir.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until well combined.
- Line or lightly oil a muffin pan. Fill each muffin cup with batter, you should get about 6-8 muffins depending on your pan.
- Bake for about 25 minutes.
Can I make a loaf instead of muffins?
Yes! If you don't have a muffin pan or simply don't feel like having muffins, you can make this as a loaf instead of muffins.
Use a rectangular 4x8 inches baking tin to make a pumpkin bread. Then follow the instructions in the recipe card below for the bread.
Can I freeze these pumpkin muffins?
Yes! They freeze extremely well. Which is so convenient!! So nice to have a delicious snack or dessert that is ready to be eaten in the freezer (well, it just needs to be thawed).
About thawing one of these delicious muffins, you can either take it out of the freezer a few hours ahead or pop it in the microwave oven (if you still have one, like me, and yes I know that they are very controversial health wise but nobody's perfect lol) for 1 minute or pop it in the oven for a few minutes.
Other tigernut/almond flour recipes you might also like
- Coconut free Banana bread (AIP, paleo, vegan)
- Carob zucchini bread (Coconut free, AIP, paleo)
- Fudgy brownies (Coconut free, AIP, paleo, vegan)
- Banana blueberry muffins (Coconut free, AIP, paleo)
- Zucchini and pesto muffins (AIP, paleo, vegan)
- Zucchini and tuna bread (Coconut free, AIP, paleo)
Paleo pumpkin muffins (Gluten free, AIP, vegan)
Ingredients
- 150 g tigernut flour if you are not on AIP nor nut intolerant, you can use almond flour instead of tigernut flour
- 250 g pumpkin purée
- 50 g arrowroot see notes below for substitutions
- 125 ml maple syrup see notes if you want to reduce quantity
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar or lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon AIP compliant vanilla extract
- ⅛ teaspoon ground ginger
- ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 360° F (180° C)
- In a blender combine the maple syrup, pumpkin puree, lemon juice (or ACV) and vanilla. Blend until combined.
- In a large bowl, combine the tigernut flour, arrow root, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Stir.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until well combined.
- Line or lightly oil a muffin pan (or a rectangular 4x8 inches baking tin if you are making a pumpkin bread). Fill each muffin cup with batter, you should get about 6-8 muffins depending on your pan.
- Bake for about 25 minutes for the muffins (or about 35 minutes for the bread). To make sure that they are cooked, insert a thin bladed knife into the centre of one muffin, the knife should come out clean. And voilà! Let them cool down before removing them from the pan. You can eat them like that or you can add a frosting. Click here to see the AIP Lemon frosting recipe or here to see the AIP Carob frosting recipe. Bon appétit !
CHANTAL SEJOURNE-DAITCH
Delicious! It's a nice way to celebrate during the quarantine!
Lisa Daniel Rollins
Can I freeze these?
gohealthywithbea
Bonjour Lisa. Oui, oui, oui! (Yes!) ???? I’ve frozen them countless times, they freeze really well. Thank you for asking, I will add this to my notes. Take care!
Heather
I doubled the recipe (but only used 1/4 cup of maple syrup) & made a small loaf & muffins. Delish! My family is not on AIP but they raved over the muffins! Thank you so much for this recipe. It's a keeper for sure!
Belle
How Many CARBS for the entire recipe????
gohealthywithbea
Hello Belle. Right now, I honestly can't answer your question. But I'm currently working on adding the nutrition facts to my recipes. Though I can't tell you when they will be added. Thank you for your patience.
Kristine
The recipe says 4/3 cups of tigernut flour on my end. Not sure if it's suppose to be 3/4 cup of tigernut flour? Would love to make these soon!
gohealthywithbea
No it's 4/3 cups of tigernut flour (or 1 cup + 1/3 cup). Sorry if it's confusing. I'll see if I can change that on this new recipe card that I'm using. I changes it so that my readers could have all the nutrition facts. But before you try this recipe, let me kindly remind you that, even though I convert everything to cups myself, weighing for ingredients is much more accurate and ends up with better results. Let me know if you try this recipe!
Lisa Daniel Rollins
I will be making these this week. Can't wait to taste them!!!!!
gohealthywithbea
Thank you for your enthusiasm Lisa! ❤️ Let me know how it goes for you.
Lisa Daniel Rollins
I prefer these muffins after they've been defrosted. For some reason, freshly made, they tasted dry and gritty but the freezing process seems to moisten the muffins! I will have to decrease the maple syrup as 3 muffins in 24 hours caused eczema to flare: probably due to candida issues. This recipe is a keeper!!
gohealthywithbea
Bonjour Lisa. Well this is the weirdest thing ever. ???? Although I absolutely confirm that they freeze well, I still prefer when they are fresh because in my opinion they taste better and not dry and gritty. I never would have said they get better after being frozen. But that’s very interesting to hear!
About eating 3 pumpkin muffins in 24 hours I would say that you are "très gourmande"!!! ???? So yes, you really need to reduce the maple syrup (see my notes about that) if you eat 3 of those in 24 hours or maybe you can consider making my sweet potato and bacon muffins that are savory muffins. Those will be better for Candida issues (something that I’m also dealing with, by the way...)
Lindsay
Hi! Can I use something else besides tiger nut flour or almond flour?
Sharon
Started AIP a couple of months ago and found this recipe. The best pumpkin muffins. I make a batch and freeze. I make another batch and add enough unsweetened applesauce to make a cup for the leftover pumpkin. I also do use 1/3 maple syrup and add 3 tablespoons coconut oil. I'll be making these year around.
Brenda
Can you use a mixer in place of the blender?
gohealthywithbea
Bonjour Brenda. I'm not sure about using a mixer as I've never tried using one for that recipe. The point is to have an homogeneous mixture with the pumpkin purée and the other wet ingredients. If you don't have a blender you could put all the wet ingredients in a bowl and mash them together with a fork until they are well combined. Hope this helps!
GraceMcD
Best AIP baking recipe I found so far. I did not have enough pumpkin puree (only had about 2/3 c) so I added some applesauce to make the cup and that worked great! I also did 1/4 c of maple syrup instead of 1/2 c! My three year old who eats no AIP baked goods that I make, ate three of these in 30 minutes and so did I! When people are talking about freezing them, are they freezing the batter or the cooked muffin? Also, I am curious if adding a tbsp of gelatin would help with the flakiness. What are your thoughts? DELICIOUS!
gohealthywithbea
Bonjour Grace. Thank you for taking the time to tell me that you loved this recipe. I’m always happy to hear that!! ❤️ When I freeze these muffins I freeze them cooked. Just need to be defrost and they are ready to be eaten: so convenient!! I never bake with gelatin (in France we use gelatin in pâtés, terrines or other savory dishes) so I can’t answer you on that. What I can tell you though is that they shouldn’t be flaky. So I’m guessing it comes from the amount of arrowroot or tapioca starch. Although I spend a lot of time converting everything to cups measurements, gluten free flours and starches density varies a lot from one brand to another. So I highly recommend using a scale to weight the ingredients as AIP baking is extremely sensitive and needs an exact dry/wet ingredients balance.
Pamela
I made these entirely with the same amount of home-rendered pork lard instead of maple syrup (since my version of AIP uses zero sugar for now). That’s a lot of lard... but they were delicious, filling, and still lightly sweet from the tigernut. Next time, I’ll try adding some blueberries!
gohealthywithbea
Glad to hear that you loved these. Yes that’s definitely a lot of lard. I honestly didn’t think about completely replacing the maple syrup with lard. If you are not intolerant to coconut you might want to use 1/4 cup coconut milk + 1/4 cup lard (or oil). And if you want blueberry muffins, if you can have bananas you might want to consider trying my banana blueberry muffin recipe as it contains way less maple syrup (less to substitute). Hope this will be helpful!
Nat
These were fab! So comforting. I used the 1/3 cup maple syrup + 3 tbsp oil, but I reckon they were still pretty sweet and could cut the maple further.
Absolutely delicious though! Thanks!
nat
Update! I made them again, with just 2 tablespoons of maple and they were great.
I also used 1/3 cup of cassava flour as I finished the tiger nut. Also added blueberries...really delicious 😋
Sara
Hi...would it work to do half Tigernut and half almond flour? Also, if using only the 2 Tbsp maple syrup (as Nat did), what would you change in the rest of the wet ingredients? Could you please reply to my email?
gohealthywithbea
Bonjour Sara. Although I've never done this, considering that almond flour and tigernut flour are a 1:1 substitution, yes it would work with half tigernut and half almond flour. Like i've said in my notes, if you want to reduce the maple syrup quantity, you can replace it with the same quantity of oil. If you're afraid it will be too oily, you can use a little bit of water or non dairy milk. The easiest way to do this is to pour the 2 Tbsp of maple syrup to the 1/2 cup, then top the maple syrup with whatever liquid you're opting for until you get your half cup of liquid.
Salima
These muffins were amazing!! I’m really glad they’re not made with gelatin.
I added in whole cranberries and a pinch of turmeric. I baked as per instructions.
I froze them and take them out as I need.
Definitely will be making this recipe again and again!
gohealthywithbea
Bonjour Salima! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave such a nice comment! ❤️❤️❤️ I'm glad that you love this recipe! Adding a pinch of turmeric and whole cranberries sounds like a really good idea. Thanks for the tip! And yes, all my baking recipes are gelatin free because in French cuisine we use gelatin in patés. So I can't bring myself to use it in sweet baking recipes.😉
Dani
The best gluten-free and or AIP muffins ever! I have made dozens over the years and this was amazing. I did use half the maple syrup and added ghee. Thank you!
Ashley houston
Since applesauce is sometimes used as a replacement for oil in some recipes, do you think I could do applesauce in place of maple syrup/ oil substitution? Also doing 0 sweeteners
gohealthywithbea
Bonjour Ashley. In this particular recipe, I don't know if applesauce will work. It might not be liquid enough. I would use non dairy milk instead of maple syrup in your case. Hope this helps. Let me know if you try them!
Madison
I just found this recipe today and made them! As someone who has struggled with my gut health for years I am so grateful for these nourishing and delicious muffins! They are the fluffiest muffins I've ever made and the only ones that haven't left me with a tummy ache after eating 🙂 How long do you recommend storing them at room temperature and then how long do you recommend storying them in the fridge?
gohealthywithbea
I'm glad that you liked this recipe! Thank you for taking the time to leave a nice comment!❤️❤️ I usually eat them on the day they were baked and the next day. If I know that the whole batch will be eaten on the first day (when I have company, not all by myself lol) I will just leave them on the kitchen counter so that my guests can help themselves. At the end of the day, if there are any leftovers, I will store them in the fridge until the next day. When I make a batch only for myself, I just keep 2 muffins (one that I will eat on the day I made them and another one for the next day) and I store all the other muffins in the freezer right after they have cooled down after baking. I find that doing this ensure that they stay fresh. Hope this answers your question!