I had someone email recently asking me why I didn’t have more cookie recipes on the site. I’d say low carb cookies are the hardest to get right. They take a lot of testing and trials, and I usually get frustrated long before I ever get to the point I want. But I love cookies. I would say I would take a cookie over a piece of cheesecake any day, so long as the cookie was GOOD. So are these frosted keto sugar cookies good? Yes, yes, they are!
These cookies are soft and cake-like and melt in your mouth. They are not overly dry, but they are not moist, chewy cookies either, they land somewhere in between. The sprinkles on the top are also low carb and keto-friendly, and if you want the recipe, you can hop on over to this post.
The frosting is a half-sweet cream cheese whipped topping that I feel compliments them very well.
These are pretty big cookies too, they are thick, and 3 inches in diameter and still only clock in at five net carbs. If you made them smaller, you could cut the carbs even more, but you know sometimes you just want a big ass cookie, and in that case, this recipe works very well.
This recipe is:
- Keto-Friendly
- Low Carb
- Gluten-Free
Low Carb Sugar Cookies with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
The great thing about sugar cookies is their versatility. You can change up the flavors with different flavor oils, or the frosting, or anything you want.
The sugar cookies are great without the frosting dipped or drizzled in chocolate because let’s get real; anything dipped in chocolate is goooooood!
If you don’t like the thickness of the cookies, you can make them thinner, just watch the baking time. And yes, you can even roll the dough and do cut-outs, just make sure your dough is very cold when you roll it out. The easiest way to do this is between two sheets of parchment paper.
Thinner cookies also make great sandwich cookies! You can get quite creative with this recipe.
Sweeteners for this recipe
I tested these keto sugar cookies with powdered erythritol (the texture is better with powdered). The powdered sweeteners like monk fruit and erythritol tend to have the least amount of aftertaste, so I recommend them. The powdered sweetener creates a softer cookie without a lot of grain. I like So Nourished Monk Fruit Blend and Surkin Icing.
Powdered erythritol, monk fruit, or blends of both work great in the frosting recipe.
ADDITIONAL SWEETENERS THAT WOULD ALSO WORK IN THIS RECIPE JUST FINE.
Swerve would work here as well, or any of your favorite granular blends like xylitol or erythritol.
SWEETENERS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR THIS RECIPE.
Liquid sweeteners like stevia will throw off the dry – wet ingredient ratio, and I don’t recommend them for this recipe unless you want to do some testing on your own.
Tips for the batter
- Make sure your eggs, butter, and cream cheese are at room temperature before blending.
- Don’t skip the protein powder. It’s the ingredient that binds everything together in this recipe and holds the cookies together.
- Be sure to wrap your dough in plastic wrap and store it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before forming into cookies.
- A large ice cream scoop or 1/4 cup measuring cup will create the perfect size cookies.
- Once the cookies are formed into balls, push down with your fingers to flatten. I tried using a cup, and it only made a mess. Fingers worked best!
Baking tips To make the perfect low carb cookie
- Use a heavy-duty cookie sheet. If you do not have a heavy-duty cookie sheet, doubling up the pan with another cookie sheet will do the trick. No second pan? Use a layer of tin foil to protect the bottom of your sheet. Almond flour, as well as coconut flour over-brown and protecting the bottom of the cookie sheet ensures an even golden brown bake.
- Keep an eye out on the cookies around the 12-14 minute mark. We want the sugar cookies to be just starting to brown a bit around the edges.
- Let the cookies cool on the pan for 10 minutes before removing them. They will be soft (just like a regular cookie) when first out of the oven, and we need to give them time to set.
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Storage & Serving suggestions
I used my go-to frosting recipe because I find it’s not super sweet, and it doesn’t have that weird aftertaste when you use too much sweetener. But you can use any of your favorite low carb frostings or toppings, or even eat them plain. The frosting recipe below is very soft at room temperature, and it is better if the keto sugar cookies get stored in the refrigerator. With that said, I personally like the cookies themselves at room temperature. They are softer and more melt in your mouth, so it’s a bit of a catch-22 here. You could store your frosting in the fridge, and your cookies on the counter, and frost them as you need them.
The cookies themselves, unfrosted, store brilliantly in the freezer.
Also, to up the melt in your mouth feeling, a hot beverage is highly recommended.
Melt In Your Mouth Frosted Keto Sugar Cookies
These keto frosted sugar cookies are melt in your mouth soft with a cream cheese frosting that doesn't taste overly sweet. The vanilla really shines in these little treats.
Ingredients
Sugar Cookies
- 2 ounces cream cheese
- 1/2 cup + 1 tbsp unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup powdered erythritol
- 1 egg
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 1/3 cup almond flour
- 1/3 cup coconut flour
- 2 Tbsp protein powder
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
Frosting
- 1/2 cup whipping cream
- 1/3 cup powdered erythritol
- 1 cup (8 ounces) full-fat cream cheese
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 drops pink food colouring
Instructions
Sugar Cookies
- Preheat oven to 325F and line a heavy-duty cookie sheet with parchment. * see notes below about cookie sheet.
- Cream butter and cream cheese in a medium-sized bowl until mixture is soft and spreadable.
- Add sweetener, vanilla, and egg to the butter and cream cheese mixture and mix on high until well blended.
- Add almond flour, coconut flour, baking powder, protein powder, and salt to the wet ingredients and blend on low until ingredients are well incorporated.
- Wrap cookie dough in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
- Once the cookie dough is cooled drop 1/4 cup round balls of dough onto your prepared cookie sheet, and press down with your fingers. The dough does not spread a lot, so the shape you create is the shape you will end up with, so try to flatten the dough evenly.
- Bake in a 325F oven for 14-16 minutes until the outside edges of the cookies just start to brown. Do not over bake.
- Frost with your favorite keto or low carb frosting
Low Carb Frosting
- Cube one cup of cold full-fat cream cheese and add it to the bowl of a stand mixer and blend for 1 minute, until the cream cheese has no lumps. Scrape down the sides of the bowl if necessary.
- Add vanilla, food colouring, and powdered erythritol.
- Add 1/2 cup of full-fat whipping cream to the bowl and mix on low for 30 seconds, until blended with cream cheese. Turn up to medium and then high until the whipped cream and cream cheese fluff up and resemble buttercream frosting.
- Do not overbeat. Over beating will cause the mixture to liquefy.
Notes
1. If you do not have a heavy-duty commerical cookie sheet my recommendation is to either double up your pans by sliding an extra pan under the one you are using, or wrap the bottom of your cookie sheet with tin foil. Almond flour and coconut flour tend to over-brown and we need to protect the bottom of the cookies while they bake.
2. Do not skip the protein powder. The protein powder replaces gluten and helps the cookie to stabilize and give it structure. Without the protein powder, the cookies will fall apart. You can use any flavour of protein powder you want.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 9 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 313Total Fat: 28gSaturated Fat: 13gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 14gCholesterol: 73mgSodium: 170mgCarbohydrates: 8gNet Carbohydrates: 5gFiber: 3gSugar: 2gProtein: 9g
These look amazing! Any chance you could substitute psyllium husk for protein powder to bind them? Thanks!
Hi Jenna, I didn’t test psyllium husk powder so I can’t say for sure. I have used it in other recipes with success for binding, so in theory, it should work … ah, but I can’t say for sure without testing. I am also not sure what it will do to the texture since psyllium tends to add a bit of toughness. You can sub the protein powder with 1/4 tsp xantham gum but you will need to increase the almond flour by 1 1/2 tbsp. I did test xantham gum and it was good, but it didn’t create a soft texture as the protein powder did, so I went with the better of the two recipes for the site. With that said, the xanthan gum cookies are good too, just a tiny bit different in the texture. I hope that helps!
I don’t have protein powder! Can I use xanthan gum?
Hey Karen, it’s funny, I usually always use Xanthan gum but for this recipe, I had better results with the protein powder. You can sub 1/4 tsp of xanthum gum for the protein powder. Add an additional 1 1/2 tbsp of almond flour to the recipe to make up for the missing dry ingredients. Cheers!