Keto Snickerdoodles

My husband and I are following a ketogenic diet, and it’s Christmastime…we don’t want to go off plan but we like a few “legal” treats now and then.

This man loves snickerdoodles.  Seriously.  The other night we were watching Elf and a commercial for some new TV show came on with a young couple arguing about whether snickerdoodles are just a type of sugar cookie or are they a cookie in their own right…after six repeats of this, I asked my husband if he would like some keto snickerdoodles, and of course he said yes.  We are highly suggestible people.

Anyway, I looked to my favorite source for recipe information, Pinterest, and found several recipes that I didn’t quite like.  The thing about snickerdoodles is they traditionally contain some cream of tartar.  This adds just a little “tang” to the flavor.  Many of these recipes didn’t have any.  I finally found one that seemed very authentic from Averie Cooks, called appropriately, “The Best Snickerdoodles.”  All her cookie recipes look wonderful!  These are full-on sugar and flour, so I had to adapt them to use keto ingredients.

To adapt a regular cookie recipe to low carb, I sub almond flour (prefer Bob’s Red Mill, I can get it at Sam’s Club) for the regular flour.  You usually need to increase the amount of almond flour.  So for 1 1/2 cups AP flour, I use 2 cups almond flour.  Then see how much sugar is in the recipe and sub an equivalent amount of your preferred alternative sweetener.  I am really liking Pyure Organic Stevia Blend (this is stevia extract and erythritol).  Pyure Blend is twice as sweet as sugar, so you need half the amount.  This is good because too much erythritol is NOT good.  Sugar alcohols can wreak havoc on your gut, depending on the amount you ingest and your own personal tolerance level.  I like to combine sweeteners to enhance their effect, so I added 6 drops of liquid sucralose to up the sweet factor to 3/4 cup total sugar equivalent.  You could use another tablespoonful of the Pyure instead.

A few tips to ensure nice puffy cookies:  Don’t melt your butter to a liquid consistency.  It should be soft, not runny.  Cream the butter and sweetener well before adding your egg, then blend that some more until it’s really fluffy.  Add the rest of the ingredients and continue to mix well.  At this point, you should pop your dough into the refrigerator for a half hour or so to get it firm (longer than that is fine).  Softer dough has a tendency to spread.  If you want crispy cookies, this can be a good thing, but for puffy snickerdoodles, chill it.  On this baking occasion, I did not chill the dough and they came out a little on the flat side.  I was in a hurry.  😀

I use a tablespoon size cookie scoop to shape the balls but you can certainly use your hands.  This recipe makes at least twenty cookies.  Roll the balls in the Pyure/cinnamon mix and place on parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

Bake at 350 for 10 or 11 minutes.  They should be just set but not really browned.  I suggest letting them sit on the baking sheet for a few minutes to cool and firm up before moving them.

We are big cinnamon fans here, so I increased the cinnamon to sweetener ratio for the rolling mixture.

I hope you enjoy these as much as we have!

Adapted from Averie Cooks.

Macros per cookie: 72 calories, 6 grams fat, 6 grams carbohydrate, 3 grams fiber, 1 gram protein, Net Carbs 3    Calculated from MyFitnessPal based on a total of 20 cookies.