These paleo pumpkin muffins with cinnamon streusel are everything I love about fall baking! Moist, sweetly spiced pumpkin muffins are topped with the perfect streusel plus an optional maple icing! They’re a kid favorite and happen to be gluten-free, grain free, and have a tested dairy free option.
Let the fall baking obsession begin! As if I could hold back any longer – I mean it’s August 27 and it also happens to be the Monday before the Saturday that is Sept 1.
So, what I’m saying is that it’s almost fall and I’m more than ready to break out the pumpkin and go to town on some muffins – these paleo pumpkin muffins with a gloriously sweet/spiced cinnamon streusel.
And, because it’s the first pumpkin recipe of the season for me (and because I’ve been a little icing-happy lately) I even drizzled them with a gooey sweet maple icing – optional, of course, if you want to keep them less sweet. I will say the muffins are sweet enough even without the icing – I just couldn’t help myself though!
The muffin recipe itself is loosely based on my simple paleo pumpkin bread, which has been a favorite among readers for a couple of years.
I used a combination of 3 flours – blanched almond, arrowroot (tapioca can be used too) and just a bit of coconut flour.
Although using 3 flours can seem like a lot/obnoxious/annoying/unnecessary, I find that most of my favorite baking recipes use a combination in order to get great texture and rise, and make them more like traditional white-flour muffins. You can shop the exact flours I use below the recipe – I buy everything on Amazon.
Ah yes – there’s that icing again! In order to achieve a light colored icing, I used organic confectioner sugar – which is not paleo.
However, if you have a food processor, you can easily make your own powdered sugar with either maple sugar or coconut sugar – which makes icing the same way traditional powdered sugar does! If you want to make your own but also want it lighter in color, I recommend using maple sugar.
Using coconut sugar will be delicious, but the icing itself will be brown. To be honest, I only used the white stuff for the photos – my personal preference would be to make my own with maple sugar.
As for the streusel topping, you also have a couple of options in terms of ingredients. If you include grass-fed butter in your diet, that will be the best option to use for the streusel.
If not, you can use COLD ghee or coconut oil. Coconut oil will give the topping a finer crumb, and it will be softer than when using butter.
Whether you’re making these paleo pumpkin muffins for an easy snack or serving them to a crowd at brunch, I’m sure you and anyone who tries one will fall in love at first bite!
They’re moist but not mushy, not too dense, have tons of pumpkin spice flavor and just the right amount of sweetness.
Let’s get our aprons on (I’m totally clumsy) and our ovens preheated and let’s get get ready to make gluten free, grain free and paleo muffin magic. In a fall baking paradise! Too much? I know, pumpkin season just gets me way too excited – let’s go!
Paleo Pumpkin Muffins with Cinnamon Streusel {GF, DF}
Paleo Pumpkin Muffins with Cinnamon Streusel
Ingredients
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup organic pumpkin puree
- 1/3 cup organic coconut milk full fat
- 1/3 cup organic coconut sugar or maple sugar
- 2 Tbsp pure maple syrup
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 3/4 cups blanched almond flour
- 1/4 cup tapioca flour or arrowroot
- 1 Tbsp coconut flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- pinch fine grain sea salt
Streusel:
- 2/3 cup blanched almond flour
- 1/3 cup maple sugar or coconut sugar
- 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1/8 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 cup grass fed butter or ghee or coconut oil, solid and chilled
Maple icing**(optional)
- 1/2 cup organic powdered sugar or make your own with maple sugar*
- 2 tsp pure maple syrup
- 2 tsp coconut milk or unsweetened almond milk
- 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions
Prepare the streusel first:
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In a medium bowl, use a pastry blender or fork to combine the cold butter or ghee (or coconut oil) with the almond flour, sugar, pumpkin pie spice and sea salt. Blend until a crumbly mixture forms, then refrigerate until ready to use.
Muffins:
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Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and line a muffin pan with 12 parchment liners.
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In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, eggs, sugar, maple syrup, coconut milk, and vanilla, until very smooth and well combined
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In a separate bowl, blend the 3 flours, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice until well combined, then stir this into the wet mixture, beating by hand until smooth and well combined.
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Fill the liners 3/4 of the way with batter (it will make enough for 12-14 depending on how high you fill them)
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Top each muffin generously with the chilled streusel, then bake in the preheated oven for 22 minutes or until they rise and a toothpick inserted near the center of one comes out clean.
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Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
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If making the icing, stir together all ingredients in a small bowl until very smooth. You might need more or less sugar to get a “drizzle” consistency. Drizzle icing over completely cooled muffins before serving. Enjoy!
Recipe Notes
*To make your owned paleo powdered sugar, blend maple sugar or coconut sugar in a food processor until you achieve a powdery consistency/texture.
**This will make more than what you need
Nutrition
Shop Products and Ingredients:
Want More Paleo Pumpkin Baking Recipes? Try One of These!
Paleo Pumpkin Bread with Chocolate Chips {Nut Free}
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Paleo + Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Cheesecake
Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Cinnamon Frosting
Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Skillet Cookie with Salted Caramel
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These did not turn out well. Partially my fault that I used room temperature ghee. Because of the way canned coconut milk settles, it is very hard to make the coconut milk solids blend well in the batter and these came out very runny and oily.
You can’t rate a recipe 1 star if you didn’t follow the instructions! These turned out great. The butter (or whatever you use for the streusel) needs to be cold. Put your can of coconut milk in warm water to help combine the water and cream easier. The only thing I changed was baking for 5 minutes longer and I’m glad I did.
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I don’t understand the streusel – says to use the almond flour, but then you say you all 3 flours for the dry ingredient mix. Are you using a portion of the almond flour for the streusel?
The flour for the streusel recipe is separate from the flour in the rest of the batter. You use 3/4 cup flour in the streusel recipe ( although this made too much streusel in my opinion ) and 1 3/4 cup almond flour with the tapioca flour & coconut flour for the muffin batter.
I would use 2/3 cup almond flour, 2-3 T coconut sugar and 3T cold butter with the spices for the streusel next time.
Ok these are insanely delicious. I just made a few changes – used monkfruit sweetner in the batter instead of coconut sugar and only used 3 T instead of the 1/3 cup. But I did add 1T of coconut oil to the recipe.
Did use the coconut sugar in the streusel recipe.
Next time I will cut down the streusel measurements because it made too much – even with putting 1T of streusel on each muffin.
Love the combination of grain free flours!
Hey. I really want to use your recipes. Unfortunately, I use my mobile device in the kitchen to look up recipes while Im cooking/baking. Your site contains so many ads on your site that the webpage literally crashes every time I open a recipe. I had to whip out my laptop to write this comment. Even on a computer, the website is bogged down by ads and videos. I’ve resorted to taking screen shots of the ingredients. So with all of that said, while I have been able to make a few of your recipes and I do absolutely love them, I will be finding another paleo chef/baker to follow. It’s just not worth the frustration of swimming through the blocks of text, ads and pictures to get to the damn recipe.
Paleo pumpkin muffins were phenomenal, taste was perfect and looked like made in a high end bakery! Your recipes are the best, got us through isolation for COVID and my friends request the banana scones every week, so I buy your cookbook and send them a gift. Have you ever tried peach scones, or are they too juicy?
This is truly a great and easy recipe. Thanks for sharing it! My daughter really love this cake!
This recipe was so so delicious! Thanks for sharing!
Is there a flour alternative in place of almond flour that would work well in these muffins? I am allergic to almonds and have been having a hard time finding yummy paleo recipes without almond flour and I am not sure how to substitute other flours in it’s place!
My son, who is three, devoured these—the whole family loved them! Thanks for all of your amazing recipes.