These Keto Butter Cookies are buttery, melt-in-your-mouth shortbread biscuits with a delicious almond vanilla flavor and crunchy chocolate shell. Bonus, these almond flour butter cookies are also gluten-free and paleo-approved.
As a French girl, I would probably call these cookies Sables or Danish biscuits. I grew up eating these authentic biscuits for Christmas, and this year I created a low-carb version of my old-time favorite. Enjoy these low-carb butter cookies and travel to Europe from the comfort of your home.
Keto Butter Cookies are different from keto almond flour shortbread or keto coconut flour shortbread cookies. In fact, butter cookies have more butter, and their texture is softer and moister. That makes these cookies pipeable to create different cookie shapes, such as these beautiful cookies decorated with chocolate shells and Christmas sprinkles.
Ingredients and Substitutions
Even if these gluten-free butter cookies look fancy, they are pretty easy to make. All you need are 5 ingredients:
- Almond Flour – I use ultra-fine blanched almond flour with a light texture and golden color. It’s way better than an almond meal that makes cookies dark in color and quite grainy. You can’t use other flours.
- Softened Butter – Don’t use coconut oil in this recipe. It won’t work at all.
- Large Eggs – You can’t use egg replacers in this recipe. It won’t work.
- Vanilla Extract – For flavor.
- Powdered Sweetener – I am using keto powdered sweetener like erythritol or allulose.
How To Make Keto Butter Cookies
- First, place the butter and sweetener in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer.
- With a hand beater or the paddle attachment of your stand mixer, beat the ingredients for 1 minute on the high-speed setting until the butter is fluffy and pale in color.
- Now, add the eggs, almond flour, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. Beat again on the medium-speed setting until it forms a wet cookie dough.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper and oil the paper with coconut oil. Set it aside.
- Is it easy to pipe butter cookie dough? Well, it depends on the material you are using. To make the process much easier you have three options. Piping Bag – Use a pastry piping bag, they are stronger than single-use plastic bags that will break easily here, and add a large piping tip. Small piping tips are not recommended because the cookie dough will jam the tip and never go through. Cookie Press – this is the ultimate tool to pipe cookies. It’s robust, made of a rigid tube and different piping shape. Spoon – if you don’t have any of the tools above, don’t stress out. Simply oil your hand, roll dough balls, and slightly press down on a baking sheet to form cookies.
- A beautiful butter cookie should have a light brown color so my tip to achieve that perfect color is to lower the oven temperature after 10 minutes in the oven.
- Bake the butter cookies at 350°F (180°C) for 10 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 325°F (160°C) and keep baking for about 5 minutes. The butter cookies should be slightly golden brown on the pipped edges but still light in color.
- Let the almond flour cookies cool down on their baking sheet for about 10 minutes. Then, slide a spatula under each cookie and transfer it to a cooling rack to fully cool down.
Decorating
This is up to you, but honestly butter cookies and chocolate is heaven and highly recommended. In order to make a crispy thick sugar-free chocolate shell on half of your butter cookies you need two ingredients:
- Sugar-free chocolate chips – you can use semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips or even sugar-free white chocolate chips
- Coconut oil
Melt both ingredients in the microwave, in a microwave-safe bowl in 30-second bursts, stirring between each. When the chocolate is fully melted and the cookies are cool down to room temperature you are ready to decorate them.
Hold one cookie on one side and dip the opposite side into the melted chocolate. Hold the cookie above the bowl of melted chocolate for a few seconds to give the chocolate time to run back to the bowl. Next, place each dipped cookie onto a plate covered with lightly oiled parchment paper.
Pop the plate in the fridge for 1 hour to set the chocolate shell hard – or 10 minutes in the freezer for faster cookie decoration.
If you fancy some more festive decoration on top of your butter cookies, you can add some of the keto-friendly options below:
- A pinch of salt
- Desiccated coconut
- Crunched peanuts
- A drizzle of melted white chocolate
- Keto sprinkles
- Sliced almonds
Storage Instructions
These butter cookies are perfect to make ahead during the holiday season and store for up to 1 week in the fridge. I recommend storing cookies in an airtight container to keep the texture and flavor intact. You can also freeze the cookies or the unbaked cookie dough. Thaw the cookies at room temperature the day before serving or, for cookie dough, thaw in the fridge.
More Cookie Recipes
I love creating Christmas cookie recipes to share with family and friends and below are my favorite Christmas cookie recipes for you to try:
Prevent your screen from going dark
-
In the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, or in a large mixing bowl using a hand beater, beat softened butter and powder sweetener for 1 minute on the high-speed setting. The mixture should be creamy and soft.
-
Add the vanilla extract, egg, salt, and almond flour and beat on low-medium speed until fully incorporated. The cookie batter is soft, buttery, slightly wet, but not liquid. Set aside for 2 minutes.
-
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper and lightly oil the paper with coconut oil. Set aside.
-
Use the largest piping tip you have on your piping bag and add a little bit of dough into the bag. The dough is very thick, so you need a strong piping bag with a large piping tip, or it’s hard to push out. If you can’t pipe the dough with your bag, don’t worry, you can simply oil your hands, roll 1 tablespoon of dough into a ball, and place it on the baking sheet. Slightly flatten with the back of a fork to form a shape on top.
-
Pipe a swirl of 1-2 inch wide cookie on the greased cookie sheet and repeat, refilling the pipping bag every time. You should make 16 swirl cookies with this recipe. Leave 1 thumb space between each cookie as they expand slightly in the oven.
-
Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 325°F ( 160°C) and bake for an extra 5 minutes or until the top is just golden brown. Don’t overbake, or the cookies will be dry.
-
Cool down on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes. The cookies are quite soft, and that’s what you want.
-
Gently transfer to a wire rack to fully cool down – about 30 minutes.
Decoration
-
To decorate with chocolate (optional), melt 1/2 cup sugar-free chocolate chips with one teaspoon coconut oil and dip half the cookies in the melted chocolate.
-
Place the dipped cookies onto a plate covered with lightly oiled parchment paper.
-
Pop the plate in the fridge for 15 minutes to set the chocolate shell quickly.
Serving: 1 plain butter cookieCalories: 159.4 kcal (8%)Carbohydrates: 3.8 g (1%)Fiber: 1.9 g (8%)Net Carbs: 1.9 gProtein: 4.6 g (9%)Fat: 15 g (23%)Saturated Fat: 4.5 g (28%)Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.3 gMonounsaturated Fat: 1.7 gTrans Fat: 0.2 gCholesterol: 38.5 mg (13%)Sodium: 95.9 mg (4%)Potassium: 10.7 mgSugar: 0.7 g (1%)Vitamin A: 211 IU (4%)Vitamin B12: 0.1 µg (2%)Vitamin D: 0.2 µg (1%)Calcium: 42 mg (4%)Iron: 0.8 mg (4%)Magnesium: 0.9 mgZinc: 0.1 mg (1%)
About The Author
Carine Claudepierre
Hi, I’m Carine, the food blogger, author, recipe developer, published author of a cookbook, and founder of Sweet As Honey.
I have an Accredited Certificate in Nutrition and Wellness obtained in 2014 from Well College Global (formerly Cadence Health). I’m passionate about sharing all my easy and tasty recipes that are both delicious and healthy. My expertise in the field comes from my background in chemistry and years of following a keto low-carb diet. But I’m also well versed in vegetarian and vegan cooking since my husband is vegan.
I now eat a more balanced diet where I alternate between keto and a Mediterranean Diet
Cooking and Baking is my true passion. In fact, I only share a small portion of my recipes on Sweet As Honey. Most of them are eaten by my husband and my two kids before I have time to take any pictures!
All my recipes are at least triple tested to make sure they work and I take pride in keeping them as accurate as possible.
Browse all my recipes with my Recipe Index.
I hope that you too find the recipes you love on Sweet As Honey!
