Keto Blueberry Muffins (Bakery-Style)
These keto blueberry muffins are made with ground almonds, Groovy Keto Oat Fibre and Groovy Keto Monk Fruit Decoction & Erythritol Sweetener, and baked with a hot start for tall, bakery-style domes. Each of the 12 muffins has 3.5g net carbs and no added sugar. They take 15 minutes to prepare and 25 minutes to bake, plus cooling.
These keto blueberry muffins follow the pattern of some of the best-loved low-carb muffin recipes. Maya Krampf's keto blueberry muffins on Wholesome Yum, rated 4.76 out of 5 from 1,115 votes, show how well a simple one-bowl batter of almond flour, melted butter, eggs and a splash of milk works. Katrin Nürnberger's keto blueberry muffins on Sugar Free Londoner add soured cream and lemon zest for a fresher flavour, and press the blueberries into the filled cases instead of stirring them all through. On Reddit's r/ketorecipes, a popular blueberry muffin post mixes almond flour with a little coconut flour and powdered erythritol, and Keto Cooking Christian's lemon blueberry muffins add oat fibre to the almond flour. Our twist is to lighten the ground almonds with our oat fibre, use Greek-style yoghurt for the tang, sweeten the batter and the tops with our granulated monk fruit decoction and erythritol sweetener, and borrow the bakery trick of starting the oven hot so the muffins dome. King Arthur Baking puts tall muffin domes down to high oven heat and fresh baking powder.
These are sweet muffins, closer to a light almond cake than a bread roll. If you're not sure where muffins end and cupcakes begin, our guide to muffins vs cupcakes explains the difference, and our keto birthday cake recipe includes iced keto cupcakes. A shop-bought muffin the same size has about 37g carbohydrate; each of these keto blueberry muffins has 3.5g net carbs.
What we used: Groovy Keto Oat Fibre, a very light, fine powder that lightens the ground almonds so the crumb is softer and less dense, and Groovy Keto Monk Fruit Decoction & Erythritol Sweetener, a granulated sweetener that dissolves into the batter and gives the tops a crunchy finish.
Oat Fibre
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Monk Fruit Decoction & Erythritol Sweetener
View productKeto blueberry muffins vs shop-bought muffins
A typical bakery or supermarket blueberry muffin is made with wheat flour and caster sugar, so most of its carbohydrate is starch and sugar. These keto blueberry muffins use ground almonds and oat fibre instead of flour, and a sweetener based on erythritol, which UK labels count as polyols rather than sugar.
| Per muffin | Carbohydrate | Sugars | Net carbs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shop-bought muffin | 37.3g | 21.6g | 37.3g |
| This keto muffin | 13.1g | 2.7g | 3.5g |
Shop-bought figures are UK CoFID 2021 data for food code 11-738, "Muffins, American, not chocolate, retail" (47.8g carbohydrate and 27.7g sugars per 100g), worked out for a 78g muffin, about the weight of one of ours. Bakery muffins are often bigger. It contains no polyols, so its net carbs are the same as its carbohydrate. Our carbohydrate figure includes 9.6g polyols from the erythritol in the sweetener, which are taken off to give net carbs.
Tips for bakery-style keto muffins
- Start hot, then turn it down. Five minutes at 200°C (180°C fan) makes the batter rise fast and set into a dome; the lower heat then bakes the middle without burning the almond crust. Don't open the door when you turn it down.
- Fill the cases to the top. Bakery muffins look tall because there's plenty of batter in each case. Deep muffin or tulip cases give the domes room to rise.
- Weigh the oat fibre. It is very light, so spoon measures are unreliable. 30g is enough to lighten the almonds without drying the batter.
- Let the batter rest. Five minutes lets the oat fibre soak up liquid, so the batter thickens and holds the blueberries in place.
- Fold, don't beat. Once the wet and dry are together, stop as soon as there are no dry pockets. Overmixing knocks out air and crushes the berries.
- Use room-temperature eggs and yoghurt. Cold ingredients make the melted butter firm up in lumps and the muffins rise less.
Keto Blueberry Muffins (Bakery-Style)
- Prep time15 min
- Bake time25 min
- Total time1 hour, including cooling
- Makes12 muffins
- Net carbs3.5g per muffin
Ingredients
For the muffins
- 200g ground almonds
- 30g Groovy Keto Oat Fibre
- 100g Groovy Keto Monk Fruit Decoction & Erythritol Sweetener
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp fine sea salt
- 4 large eggs, at room temperature
- 150g full-fat Greek-style yoghurt, at room temperature
- 60ml whole milk
- 90g unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (one with no added sugar; check the label)
- Finely grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
- 120g blueberries, fresh or frozen (not thawed)
For the tops
- 30g blueberries
- 15g (about 1 tbsp) more of the sweetener
You will also need a 12-hole muffin tin, 12 deep paper muffin cases or tulip cases, two bowls, a whisk, a spatula, a skewer and a wire rack.
Allergens: contains eggs, milk and nuts (almonds). See the allergen notes under Nutrition.
Method
- Heat the oven. Heat the oven to 200°C / 180°C fan / gas mark 6. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with deep paper muffin cases or tulip cases.
- Mix the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the ground almonds, oat fibre, 100g sweetener, baking powder and salt, breaking up any lumps. Take out 1 tsp of the mixture and set it aside for the blueberries.
- Mix the wet ingredients. In a second bowl, whisk the eggs for about 1 minute until frothy. Whisk in the yoghurt, milk, melted butter, vanilla and lemon zest until smooth.
- Combine and rest. Pour the wet mixture into the dry and fold with a spatula just until there are no dry pockets left. Leave the batter for 5 minutes, so the oat fibre soaks up some of the liquid and the batter thickens.
- Add the blueberries. Toss the 120g blueberries in the reserved spoonful of dry mixture, then fold them into the batter with two or three gentle turns.
- Fill the cases. Divide the batter between the 12 cases, filling each one right to the top. Press the remaining 30g blueberries into the tops and sprinkle over the 15g sweetener.
- Bake. Bake for 5 minutes, then, without opening the door, turn the oven down to 180°C / 160°C fan / gas mark 4 and bake for another 18 to 20 minutes, until the muffins are domed and golden and a skewer pushed into the centre comes out clean apart from any blueberry juice. If the tops brown too quickly, lay a sheet of foil loosely over them for the last few minutes.
- Cool. Leave the muffins in the tin for 10 minutes, as almond muffins are soft while hot, then lift them out onto a wire rack and leave them for at least 10 minutes more before eating.
Keto muffins: other flavours to try
- Chocolate chip muffins: swap all the blueberries for 80g of our Dark Chocolate Mini Baking Chips, stirring 60g into the batter and scattering 20g over the tops, and leave out the lemon zest. Each chocolate chip keto muffin has 2.6g net carbs and 238 kcal.
- Other berries: raspberries or blackberries work in the same amounts. Cut any large blackberries in half.
- More lemon: add the zest of a second lemon for a sharper lemon and blueberry muffin.
- Mini muffins: bake the batter in 24 mini muffin cases at 180°C / 160°C fan / gas mark 4 for 12 to 15 minutes, with no hot start.
The chocolate chip figures are worked out the same way as the blueberry ones. Any of the other changes will alter the nutrition figures.
More low carb muffin and baking ideas
- Fruit on keto: berries are among the lower-carb fruits. Our guide to bananas on keto compares the carbs in bananas, blueberries and other fruit.
- Baking with oat fibre: our guide to what oat fibre is and how to bake with it explains how much to use and why it needs weighing.
- Another bake for the weekend: our keto scones are made from our scone mix and served with jam and cream.
Storage
- Room temperature: keep the cooled muffins in an airtight container for up to 2 days.
- Fridge: keep them in the fridge for up to 5 days, and warm them for a few minutes in a low oven before eating.
- Freezer: freeze the cooled muffins in a bag or box for up to 3 months, then defrost them at room temperature.
Nutrition
Per serving (1 muffin, makes 12):
| Nutrient | Per muffin |
|---|---|
| Energy | 215 kcal |
| Fat | 18.7g |
| of which saturates | 6.1g |
| Carbohydrate | 13.1g |
| of which sugars | 2.7g |
| of which polyols | 9.6g |
| Net carbs | 3.5g |
| Fibre | 4.5g |
| Protein | 7.0g |
| Salt | 0.45g |
Net carbs are carbohydrate minus polyols. On UK labels, fibre is already listed separately from carbohydrate, so it isn't subtracted again. Figures include the blueberries and sweetener on top and are calculated from the Groovy Keto Oat Fibre and Groovy Keto Monk Fruit Decoction & Erythritol Sweetener pack labels and UK (McCance and Widdowson's CoFID) data for ground almonds (14-870), baking powder (17-355), salt (17-367), eggs (12-937), Greek-style yoghurt (12-555), whole milk (12-596), unsalted butter (17-661) and blueberries (14-325), with USDA figures for the vanilla extract and lemon zest. They will vary with the brands you use.
Allergens: this recipe contains eggs, milk (yoghurt, milk and butter) and nuts (almonds). Oat fibre is made from oats, and some baking powders contain wheat flour, so check the label if that matters to you. The oat fibre pack says it is packed in a facility where there may be traces of nuts, cereals, milk and eggs, and the sweetener pack says it is packed in a facility where there may be traces of nuts, cereals and milk. The chocolate chips pack, for the chocolate chip version, says there may be traces of nuts, cereals, milk and eggs. Each muffin contains 9.6g polyols from erythritol (11.6g in the chocolate chip version); excessive consumption may have a laxative effect. Always check the current labels before baking for anyone with an allergy.
FAQ
Are blueberries keto?
In small amounts, yes. UK CoFID figures give blueberries 9.1g carbohydrate per 100g, more than raspberries (5.1g) or blackberries (5.6g) but far less than a banana (20.3g). The 150g of blueberries in this recipe adds about 1.1g net carbs to each muffin, because the fruit is shared across 12 muffins.
How many carbs are in a keto blueberry muffin?
Each of these muffins has 13.1g carbohydrate, of which 9.6g is polyols from the erythritol in the sweetener, so 3.5g net carbs, and 215 kcal. Using UK CoFID figures, a shop-bought American-style muffin of the same 78g weight has about 37g carbohydrate, most of it from wheat flour and sugar.
How do I stop blueberries sinking in muffins?
Keep the batter thick and handle the berries gently. Let the batter rest for 5 minutes so the oat fibre soaks up some liquid, toss the berries in a spoonful of the dry mixture, then fold them in with only a few turns. Pressing more berries into the tops just before baking means every muffin has fruit right through.
Can I use frozen blueberries?
Yes. Use them straight from the freezer, because thawed berries are soft and bleed purple through the batter. Frozen berries chill the batter, so the muffins may need 2 to 3 minutes longer in the oven. Check that a skewer pushed into the centre comes out without any wet batter on it.
Why are my keto muffins dry?
Usually they were overbaked or the oat fibre was measured by volume. Almond batters go from moist to dry in a few minutes, so start checking at the lower end of the time. Weigh the oat fibre, as the pack advises: it is much lighter than flour, so spoons are unreliable, and too much soaks up the moisture.
Can I freeze keto blueberry muffins?
Yes. Cool them completely, then freeze them in a bag or box for up to 3 months. Defrost them at room temperature, or warm a defrosted muffin in a low oven for 5 minutes. They also keep in an airtight container at room temperature for 2 days, or in the fridge for up to 5 days.
