Keto Chocolate Cookies with Peppermint Cream Cheese Frosting
It's cookie season!
People all over the world use the holiday season as an excuse to crank out batch after batch of cookies. It's a magical time, as many families also use cookie baking as an opportunity to get together with loved ones or celebrate a tradition.
But most holiday cookie recipes won't fly if you're on the keto diet.
Not that you can't indulge from time to time (you totally can), but having a keto-friendly cookie recipe on hand is an awesome way to get the best of both worlds: you get to spend time with family eating cookies while sticking to your diet.
Sounds pretty good, right? It is.
And while most diet-friendly desserts leave something to be desired, we're positive you'll love this low-carb chocolate cookie recipe.
If you make this recipe, be sure to post a photo on Instagram and tag @ketologic!
Why You Need To Try These Keto Chocolate Cookies
Here are four reasons you should give these keto chocolate cookies a try this holiday season.
1. Easy and Convenient To Make
Convenience is key around the holidays, and this keto cookie recipe couldn't be easier. Most of the ingredients are also low-carb staples, so the only thing you might need to make a run to the store for is some extra chocolate and peppermint oil.
The recipe calls for erythritol, a natural sugar-free sweetener. It's one of the best keto-friendly sweeteners you can find. You can substitute erythritol for sugar 1:1 and there’s no unpleasant aftertaste.
2. One Serving Only Has 4g Net Carbs
Looking at the nutrition facts, you might be thinking, "16.5 grams of carbs per cookie? That's a little high for keto, isn't it?"
And you'd be right, most of the time. That's about one-third of your daily carbs in one treat—doable, but not ideal if you plan to eat carbs throughout the day (or have more than one cookie).
What makes these chocolate cookies keto-friendly is their net carbs, which takes into account sugar alcohols and fiber. To calculate net carbs, remember this formula:
Net Carbs = Total Carbs - Fiber - Sugar Alcohols
Fiber slows down digestion, and sugar alcohols are sweet, but processed by your body in a different way [1][2]. Fiber helps keep your gut bacteria healthy and happy, while sugar alcohols help keep your blood sugar from spiking. When you factor these two things in, you're eating only about a quarter of the carbs you'd normally eat.
3. Fat-Fueled Cream Cheese Frosting
Cookies on a diet are sometimes a stretch to begin with, let alone cookies with a thick, satisfying layer of frosting on top.
Most diet-friendly cookies lack the texture, consistency, and chew of a regular cookie. In the end, you end up sort of wishing you just had a regular dessert.But these aren't just any keto chocolate cookies.
The frosting is a simple combination of fat-fueled cream cheese and a touch of peppermint oil (see the next section for more on that). Adding sweetener is an option, but even without it, you've got yourself a delicious creamy topping for your cookies.
4. Peppermint Provides A Delicious Dose of Antioxidants
There's a reason you find peppermint in many organic foods, teas, and other products. It's good for you!
Did you know that peppermint [3]:
- Is full of antioxidants, which help fight off cancer (more on that in the next section)?
- Has antimicrobial benefits, meaning it can help cleanse bacteria from the inside of your body?
- May have anti-tumor properties?
- May have potential health benefits for your gut and respiratory system?
So while you're enjoying the holiday flavors of this cookie recipe, you can also bask in the fact that you're fueling your body with something healthy. (Actually, we could say that about more than half of the ingredients on this list.)
For example, let's look at how cocoa powder, one of the main ingredients in these cookies, positively impacts your health.
Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Cocoa Powder
Most people think of anything cocoa-flavored as an indulgence. That’s because cocoa powder is usually mixed with lots of sugar.
But as it turns out, cocoa powder is incredibly good for you. Consider these benefits:
- Protects against inflammation [4]: Inflammation is a naturally-occurring process in the body. But when inflammation lingers and becomes a chronic state, your body is more susceptible to diseases [5]. Cocoa is considered an anti-inflammatory food because it shuts down some of the inflammatory pathways. By the way, a ketogenic diet is also considered anti-inflammatory [6].
- Packed with polyphenols [7]: Polyphenols are a type of antioxidant found in plant-based products like coffee, broccoli, apples, and cocoa powder [8]. Antioxidants help reduce and neutralize free radicals (unstable, damaged cells) in the body. Eating antioxidant-rich foods like cocoa may help lower your risk of cancer.
- Improves cognitive function: As we age, the neurons in our brain begin declining in performance. Diet, exercise, and mental stimulation are all ways to help slow this natural regression. And believe it or not, the flavonols (another type of antioxidant) found in cocoa powder can help keep your brain functioning at a high level as you age [9].
Now that you've got a reason (three, actually) to eat some cocoa, here's our favorite holiday keto chocolate cookies recipe.
Ingredients:
- ½ cup butter, softened
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ⅓ cupKetoLogic erythritol
- 1½ cups almond flour
- ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ cup unsweetened chocolate chunks
- 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1 tablespoon peppermint oil
Preparation:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Cream together butter, egg, vanilla, and erythritol in a medium bowl.
- In a separate bowl, mix together almond flour, cocoa powder, and salt.
- Slowly add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and mix until incorporated. If you need a little more moisture, add in almond milk or water, one tablespoon at a time. Don’t add too much! You want this mixture to be able to be molded in your hands.
- When the mixture is doughy, add in the chocolate chunks.
- Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Create cookie dough balls and place them onto the cookie sheet. Press them into cookie-sized circles since this mix doesn’t spread a lot.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes.
- In the meantime, cream together the cream cheese and peppermint oil. You can add sweetener if you’d like.
- When the cookies have cooled, spread a layer of cream cheese onto each cookie.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 10 servings
