Keto Friendly, Gluten-Free Blackberry Lemon Muffins

With a few ketogenic essential ingredients, bake your way to these sweet, zesty, keto friendly blackberry lemon muffins!

I entered into a ketogenic diet at the end of March, and thanks to this way of eating, have lost several pounds and gained tons of happiness.

I love that my body is eating my fat for fuel while on keto, and don’t want to mess this process up by binging on carbs for any given reason. But, when cravings hit (which they rarely do now, thank goodness), they hit HARD. Thank goodness for low carb recipes and sweeteners to rescue my craving and keep me on track.

I had looked up low-carb recipes for zesty blackberry muffins, but came up short. There were tons for raspberry and blueberry–which are both delicious–but blackberries were on sale at my grocery store, they’re full of fiber which means less net carbs per cup, and they bring back childhood memories of picking them straight off the vine in my backyard and eating them in “secret” (not thinking my parents would notice my berry-drenched mouth, hands or clothes). 

I researched recipes based off what I had in the kitchen, and decided to adapt this DELICIOUS looking low carb blueberry muffin recipe to fill my craving. 

After coming across three recipes that looked fairly simple to follow, I took what I liked, left what I didn’t, and made up 7 muffins to kick my sweet tooth to the curb. Happy with the result, I brought some in to work for sharing, where I had some coworkers ask if I could share the low carb muffin recipe.

And, here you have it: 

Keto Friendly, Gluten-Free Blackberry Lemon Muffins

Yields: 6-7 Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups almond meal/flour
• 1/3 cup almond milk
• 1/4 cup Swerve Sweetener (or other equivalent granular sweetener)
• 1 tbsp coconut flour
• 1/2 tbsp gluten free baking powder
• 2 tsp lemon zest
• 1 1/2 to 2 tbsp lemon juice 
• 1 egg
• 1 egg white (save the yolk for a power smoothie! Or, hollandaise anyone?!)
• 3 tbsp butter melted
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup fresh blackberries, sliced
• 1 tsp lemon juice or lemon zest for garnishing
• a pinch of granulated sweetener for garnishing

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 325F.
• melt butter and separate yolk from one egg as preparation.
• Line muffin tin with either reusable silicone cups or oven-safe parchment paper liners (be mindful that regular paper liners can get extremely greasy and leave dye residue with this type of recipe).
• In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the almond meal, sweetener, baking powder, coconut flour, and lemon zest.
• Once well-mixed, stir in eggs, almond milk, butter, lemon juice, and vanilla extract until well combined (I used an electric mixer, but you can easily do this step with a hand-held whisk due to the butter already being melted).
• Add sliced blackberries and gently fold into batter. 
• Divide batter between 6 to 7 muffin cups and bake for 25-35 minutes until set.
• Muffins will be ready when set and a toothpick entered in the center comes out clean. 
• Remove muffins from oven and top with extra lemon juice and/or a pinch of granulated sweetener while hot for garnish. 
• Let cool 15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack for remainder of cooling.
• Refrigerate any leftovers in an air-tight container for up to a week.

Nutritional Facts (per muffin): Calories: 190, Total Fat: 16.4g, Cholesterol: 53mg, Carbohydrates: 7.7g, Fiber: 3.2g, NET Carbs: 4.5g, Protein: 6g

I find that these muffins are best served slightly warm with a pad of butter. I bet some cream cheese would do lovely on them, too!

Let me know what you think of these zesty, sweet treats. I’m thinking up some ways to jazz them up for other seasons or added fiber (think dates and pumpkins… hmm!). Stay tuned!