Description
These Sugar-free Keto Almond Shortbread Cookies use a food processor to hlep make shortbread dough with an optimal ‘doughy’ consistency that make for a smoother, less grainy cookie that holds together better and is very versatile and easy to shape! Cooling them in the oven also helps them get nice and crispy!
Ingredients
- 1.25 Cups Almond Flour (Anthony’s or Kirkland Brand are the finest grain & lowest carbs)
- 1/4 Cup Granulated Erythritol Or Monkfruit
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract (or sub almond extract! Yum)
- 3 Tablespoons Butter (I use salted for extra saltiness!), softened (NOT melted) * see note 1
Optional:
- 1 Bag of Sugar-Free Lily’s Dark Chocolate Chips Or 2 Lily’s Chocolate Bars chopped (Dark Chocolate Bars or Milk Chocolate Bars)
- Maldon Sea Salt Flakes (Optional & you may want to use unsalted butter in the cookies if you’re going add salt to chocolate coating)
- 1 teaspoon coconut oil (optional see post notes for this)
Instructions
- Put Almond Flour in a Food Processor and Process until it *ALMOST* turns into a paste, about 2-3 minutes (see process photos in post for reference- and SEE PHOTO 2), stopping once or twice during processing to scrape the sides of the food processor for uniformity. The almond flour should be ground enough that pinching it with your fingers should make it stick together like a dough, and it should look chunky and almost like it’s turning into a dough already (if you processed it TOO much it will turn into almond butter !). Add in sweetener, salt, and extract and pulse once to process together blend quickly and briefly. Add in your softened butter in rough chunks over the mix. Pulse the dough just a few times until you have cohesive dough ball (careful not to overprocess here either or the heat from processor friction will melt your butter and your dough will be too soft).
- Gather dough ball and place onto seran wrap on your counter and shape into a 1.5 inch -ish round log (see process photo in post). Wrap each end of the log tightly and twist the seran wrap ends up. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, up to 2 days.
- Preheat Oven to 325°F.
- Unwrap your refrigerated dough. Slice dough with a sharp knife to desired cookie thickness (1/4 inch to 1/2 inch) and place onto parchment lined cookie sheet. Now, you can bake as is, or if you want a smoother cookie (like in my photos), you can VERY gently press the dough down with your fingers and smooth the edges of each cookie (highly recommend!). Aim for keeping a uniform thickness though! You can also press down and smooth each piece with your fingers, and then use a round cookie cutter to slide over the edges and around them to shape even more perfectly (yes I’m crazy like this). Or if you really want to get wild, you can pop sheet in the freezer for 15 minutes and then cut out with a round cookie cutter, remove any edges of dough, reroll excess dough (and then re-refrigerate that dough and restart this process with extra).
- Bake Cookies for 8-11 minutes (depending on thickness) or until they are start turning golden brown at the edges (if they ARE NOT turning golden at the edges yet, then they are NOT done!). These cookies brown quickly so KEEP a close eye on them after 8 minutes. A thicker cookie will need more time. Once these cookies just start browning at the edges, then turn off the oven. LEAVE the cookie tray in the off oven, with the oven door cracked and let them cool for 10-15 minutes before removing the tray from the oven (THIS IS IMPORTANT AND HELPS THEM CRISP UP!).
- If you want to coat these in chocolate- READ end of my post for three methods to do this 🙂 If you want to temper your chocolate so these chocolate coated shortbread cookies are room temp stable and shiny like mine, that method is listed TOO! 🙂 But no chocolate is required for these to be delicious!
Notes
Note 1: If you don’t have any softened butter ready, then measure the cold butter needed, cut it into small cubes, and let it sit on the counter for 15 minutes (this will soften it enough!). I don’t recommend attempting to soften in the microwave, because even 10 seconds of microwaving will melt the butter too much.
Net Carbs = .94 Grams Per Cookie (Yield was 16 cookies)) NUTRITION INFO IS BEFORE CHOCOLATE COATING! You will need to add the amount of chocolate you use and divide by the number of cookies to adjust macros if you choose to chocolate coat these! 🙂
*Sugar alcohols from erythritol are not counted in total net carbs, since they don’t affect blood sugar (they’re 0 net carbs)!
Carb counts vary based on the brands of each item used. My calculations are for the brands listed/suggested.
- Prep Time: 2 hours (passive)
- Cook Time: 8-10 minutes
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Cookie WITHOUT chocolate coating (yield varies based on cookie size)
- Calories: 71.88
- Fat: 6.44 g
- Carbohydrates: .94 g NET carbs
- Protein: 1.88 g