Keto Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Soft, pillowy, homemade keto carrot cupcakes with a low sugar vanilla and clove cream cheese frosting will have you hopping with excitement!
Just 4.4g of net carbs per frosted cupcake! (3.3g per cupcake + 1.1g for the frosting)
Why You Will Love This Keto Dessert
- Carrot cake is not too sweet and not too rich, it strikes the perfect balance
- This recipe is easy enough for even first time bakers
- Carrot cake can be a festive family dessert
- No sugar added to either the cream cheese frosting or the cupcakes
- Each frosted cupcake is keto friendly with less than 5g of net carbs
What Do Carrot Cake Cupcakes Taste Like?
Keto carrot cupcakes are a slightly sweet and very soft warm-spiced cake with grated carrots, topped with a rich, creamy cream cheese frosting and crushed pecans.
Grated carrot provides texture and a subtle sweetness which is complimented by the warm spiced flavours of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.
Above the moist fluffy butter cake is a smooth vanilla clove cream cheese frosting and crunchy crushed pecans to make every bite one to remember.
Net Carbs, Nutrition, and Servings
This recipe yields above 12 full sized cupcakes, and enough frosting to liberally top each one of them.
(plus whatever you lick off the beaters and spoons during cooking, as per your right as the chef)
Per frosted cupcake:
Calories: 380 kcal
Fat: 36g
Net Carbs: 4.4g
Protein: 7.6g
Per un-frosted cupcake:
Calories: 254 kcal
Fat: 24g
Net Carbs: 3.3g
Protein: 6.4g
How to Make Keto Carrot Cake Cupcakes
Low Carb Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
IMPORTANT – There are often Frequently Asked Questions within the blog post that you may find helpful. Simply scroll back up to read them!
Equipment
- Cupcake tray
- Mixing bowl
- Cheese/box grater
- Hand Mixer (optional but recommended)
- Coffee/spice grinder (optional)
- Measuring cups
- Measuring spoons
- Rubber spatula
- Cupcake liners
- Testing stick/Toothpick
Ingredients
Keto Carrot Cake Cupcakes
Cream together
- ¾ cup butter softened, cubed
- ¾ cup monk fruit/erythritol sweetener powdered
Add in
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 large eggs add one at a time and mix well
Mix separately
- 1 ¾ cup almond flour
- 1 pinch salt
- 2 teaspoon cinnamon ground
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg ground
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 ¾ cup carrots grated or shredded
Toppings
- 1 cup Pecans or walnuts chopped
Low Carb Vanilla Clove Cream Cheese Frosting
- 8 oz cream cheese
- ¼ cup butter softened, cubed
- ⅓ cup monk fruit/erythritol sweetener powdered
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves about a pinch
- 2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream (optional) for fluffier frosting
Instructions
Making the Cupcakes
- Preheat oven to 350°F [175°C]
Cream the butter and sweetener
- Powder sweetener if necessary using a spice grinder, and add to a large mixing bowl with cubed and softened butter.
- Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sweetener together until the butter is light and fluffy. The goal here is to get air into the butter so you want it to look whipped.
Add wet ingredients
- Add vanilla extract to the bowl, and beat in the eggs on at a time to help keep the batter smooth and free of too many lumps.
Mix dry ingredients separately
- In a separate bowl, add almond flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, baking powder, and combine well. Once combine, gently fold the dry ingredients into wet mixture with rubber spatula. Avoid overbeating at this point.
- Use a box grater to shred the carrots and and gently fold into the batter until incorporated.
Baking, temperatures, and cooking times
- Add liners to a cupcake/muffin tray and spoon in the batter evenly dividing the mixture. Fill the liners until just below the top to give them room to rise.
- Bake in 350°F [175°C] oven for 25 - 30 mins. Stick a testing stick or a tooth pick into the cupcake, if it pulls out clean the cupcakes are ready to come out, if not bake for an additional 3-5 minutes and test again.
- Once cooked through, allow the cupcakes to cool in the tray for 10 minutes and then remove to a cooling rack until cool enough to add frosting and chopped pecans.
Low Carb Vanilla and Clove Cream Cheese Frosting
- While the cupcakes are in the oven or cooling, add cream cheese, butter, sweetener, vanilla extract, and ground cloves to a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. It should look whipped and lump free. If using heavy whipping cream then beat until whipped to your liking.
Notes
- Sweetener substitution: If you want to substitute a different low carb sweetener, I would recommend using a sweetener conversion tool such as:
- Ruled Me - Comprehensive Guide to Keto Sweetener substitutions & Conversions chart
- Keep in mind that changing the sweetener proportions may require adjusting recipe proportions to achieve best results.
- This recipe could also be used to make a full size carrot cake
Nutrition
Nutritional information is calculated using the recipe calculator and verified database available from Cronometer. Although every reasonable effort is made to provide accurate information this estimate is provided as courteously and convenience only. To obtain the most accurate representation of the nutritional information in any given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe.
Try the free recipe calculator at CronometerI Think You'll like These Low Carb Recipes:
Customize Your Keto Cupcakes
Baking cupcakes can be a great family activity.
Not only are you providing your family with a low sugar goodie to snack on, variation can be made to both the recipe and each cupcake to please the whole crowd,
- Add Warm-Spices: There are a variety of other warm spices such as ginger, cardamom, allspice, or mace that can really compliment this recipe
- Change Toppings: While crushed pecans are a very low carb topping, any crushed or candied nut, toasted coconut, pumpkin seeds, and even bacon can add interesting flavours to your cupcakes.
- Add Nuts or Dried Fruit: If you like nuts or raising in your baked goods feel free to add them to the batter!
- Set Up a Decorating Station: Set up a table with many different toppings and frosting to everyone can decorate their own cupcake. It’s a fun shared activity and everyone gets what they want
6 Tips to Master This Recipe
- Cream Together Butter and Sweetener: AKA “Mechanical Leavening” is an essential step to fluffy cupcakes. Its aerates the butter adding micro-pockets of air to mix helping the cupcakes to puff up in the oven.
- Powder granular sweetener: Using a coffee grinder to pulverize larger granular sweeteners into a fine powder will help distribute the sweetness evenly. It hits your tongue differently improving both the flavour and texture.
- Use an electric mixer: Between the creaming of the butter, the mixing of the batter, and the cream cheese frosting, there is a lot of heavy mixing and an electric mixer makes the job much easier and quicker.
- Mix wet and dry separately: Mix together all your wet ingredients, and you dry ingredients and then combine the two mixtures. This ensures everything is well incorporated and distributed throughout.,
- Beat in eggs one at a time: Adding all the eggs at once will create clumpy batter that which will lead to you overbeating your batter to make it smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time will result in a smoother batter.
- Use a testing stick: Test for doneness by inserting a clean toothpick or testing stick into the cupcake. If it comes out clean it is good to go, if it is covered in batter it needs more time.
- Experienced bakers will also note that the level of resistance to inserting the testing stick is also an indicator of doneness.
Take a Look at the Steps
Enjoy!
