These orange almond poppy seed muffins are the perfect sweet addition to your breakfast and make great snacks too. Perfectly moist, sweet and packed with flavor and a hint of spice, you won’t believe they’re gluten free, dairy free, and paleo!
One of my favorite flavor combos, ever, is basically anything along with almond extract. Okay, I guess that’s a whole lot of combinations, but you get the point – ALMOND EXTRACT 4 EVA! I understand that not everyone loves this flavor – I REALLY don’t understand why – but I respect it.
This recipe, however, is for all you almond extract lovers out there. The marzipan fanatics (can’t promise magic, but still) the tricolor cookie daydreamers and pound cake inhalers. I think most pound cakes use almond extract? This is something I should really know.

In the spirit of “if it ain’t broke…” I decided to slightly tweak one of my favorite coffee cake recipes to create these poppy seed muffins. The recipe is my cranberry orange coffee cake, and, it happens to be, quite possibly, my favorite of the coffee cake recipes on the blog. Anyway, I thought that I’d use the basic recipe for the coffee cake, scaled to make 12 muffins, add some poppy seeds, and see what happened.
Luckily, good things DID follow! It’s always good to re-test a favorite recipe anyhow to make sure it actually IS as good as you remember it to be. Food blogger insecurity, I guess.
These orange almond poppy seed muffins have a great moist/soft texture and I added a bit of cinnamon and ginger for an added little punch of flavor. They’re dairy free, gluten free, grain free, and refined sugar free – sweetened with raw honey. A perfect little addition to breakfast, or a great afternoon snack when you’re stuck in the car (muffins are my favorite for that!) I know you’ll love these, guys – let’s start baking!!
Orange Almond Poppy Seed Muffins {GF, Paleo}

Orange Almond Poppy Seed Muffins {GF, Paleo}

Ingredients
- 4 eggs
- 1/4 cup coconut oil melted and cooled
- 1/3 cup raw honey
- 1/3 cup fresh squeezed orange juice or 100% orange juice
- 2 tbsp orange zest zest from one large orange
- 1 tsp pure almond extract
- 2 cups blanched almond flour
- 1/2 cup tapioca flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/8 tsp sea salt
- 2 Tbsp poppy seeds
Instructions
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Line a 12 cup muffin pan with liners and preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
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Using a hand mixer on low/medium or whisk, beat together the eggs, honey, orange juice, almond extract, coconut oil and zest.
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In a separate bowl, stir together the almond and tapioca flours, baking soda, salt, poppy seeds and spices. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix on low speed or by hand until just combined.
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Divide the batter evenly between the 12 lined muffin cups (about 3/4 full), and bake about 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of one comes out clean.
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Allow muffins to sit in the pan for 2 minutes, then remove and cool completely on wire racks. Serve and enjoy! Leftovers can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or frozen.
What I Used to Make My Orange Almond Poppy Seed Muffins:
Want More Paleo Muffin Recipes? Try one of these!
Cinnamon Raisin Sweet Potato Muffins
Almond Butter Banana Muffins with Flaxseed
Chocolate Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins
Tell Me!
What’s your favorite recipe using almond extract?
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I made these for the office and they were great! It’s nice that the recipe is so easy! You don’t even need the mixer!
Thanks for a great recipe.
So thrilled you all liked them! One of my favorite muffin recipe on my blog 🙂
We loved these muffins. I am wondering if you think this recipe would work without the honey? Trying to cut back on sweetener. I am thinking maybe the combo of orange juice, almond flour and almond extract would feel sweet enough?
Hi Michele, Thank you for your inspiring muffin recipe. I soaked the poppyseeds in 1/3 cup warm orange juice for 30 minutes which helps their flavour to be released during baking (softens the outer coat). Used 2 tsp orange zest (from 2 oranges), omitted the almond essence and used 1/2 cup almond meal (leftover from making raw almond milk) +
1 1/2cups almond flour. Yield = 10 muffins. I hope my tips help other home bakers.
Unfortunately I didn’t really like these. They were rubbery in consistency. I followed the recipe just put zest of 2 oranges and STILL couldn’t taste the orange! And what’s the almond extract doing, couldn’t taste that either! I cut down the amount of sweetener too.
Loved them!!
Don’t overfill the pans .. probably could have made 13 or 14 muffins for the size of my pans.
I love these. I’ve made them twice already. They’ll be a staple recipe. 🙂
I’m wondering if there is nutrition info, carbs, fats etc? Thank u
Love them!!!! They are AWESOME! I suggest this recipe to you all!!
Hi, could I swap out the 1/4 cup tapioca flour for 1/4 cup coconut flour instead?
I have honey powder. Could that be used, and, if so, how much? How much addition liquid?
have made these muffins multiple times, everyone loves them! have mad them with mandarin and also OJ and they’re yummy both ways. I halved the almond extract as it was a little too much for me. the mixture was a little runny but it somehow works. thanks heaps!