I’ve been searching online for a sugar-free chocolate chip cookie recipe and haven’t found one that looks even remotely appetizing. I used to make amazing chocolate chip cookies back in my sugar-eating days, and even the recipe printed on the back of the Toll House Chocolate Chip bag made a darn good cookie. But when you take away the all purpose flour, table and brown sugar, and the milk chocolate chips, it doesn’t leave you with much. I’d be happy if it used almond or coconut flour, butter and/or eggs for fat, and a sweetener like monk fruit, stevia, or allulose. I would also be happy if it had sugar-free chocolate chips or 90% dark chocolate pieces. Does anyone have a solid recipe they’ve used to produce really good chewy and sugar-free chocolate chip cookies?
Maebells.com has great recipes.
She has a chocolate chip cookie. Haven’t tried them.
But we can believe they’re probably good.
Thanks, I’ll take a look.
I did a keto diet in 2019, losing about 30lbs. I usually don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but cutting out pretty much all sugar for 4 months did leave me craving something sweet every once in awhile. For those times I’d use an artificial sweetener called Erythritol to bake things. There’s also a delicious brand of chocolate called Lily’s that offers chocolate bars and semi-sweet baking chips sweetened with Erythritol. I made some chocolate chip ‘blondie’ bars with Erythritol and Lily’s chocolate chips and I thought they were fantastic. The chocolate and baked goods sweetened with Erythritol were the closest to actually tasting like sugar that I’ve ever experienced.
Unfortunately in the 2020s they started coming out with research linking Erythritol to increased risk of heart attack and stroke. As with so many of these types of findings, it’s hard to tell what’s correlation and what’s causation. So I offer the info so you can make an informed choice. I personally have decided not to consume anything with Erythritol anymore; when my sister was doing a low-carb thing she said she was willing to take on the risk and used Erythritol in her diet. If you decide to avoid Erythritol, keep in mind that many granular artificial sweeteners, even if they are advertised as being Stevia or Monkfruit, often still use Erythritol as a bulking agent, so keep that in mind and read the ingredients list.
Here’s my experience with other artificial sweeteners:
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Aspartame is linked to health issues of its own, so I also avoid aspartame. Also I get a nasty, medicinal aftertaste from it.
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Stevia I don’t mind too much, but it does have a pronounced licorice aftertaste. Sometimes that actually works in certain things, but whenever I consume something with Stevia I personally can taste licorice for up to hours afterward.
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I buy these monkfruit drops for my coffee. It’s a pretty good sugar sub flavor-wise, and not much of an aftertaste, but it’s expensive. I’ve tried it in baked goods or making my own sugar-free ice cream though, and it doesn’t seem to work too well there. So I mainly use it for sweetening coffee or cold drinks.
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I’ve also tried allulose (both granular and liquid form); it’s decent in the sense that I don’t detect much of an aftertaste, but it doesn’t seem like a very ‘sweet’ sweetener. If I use too much of it trying to get the ‘sweet spot’ I want, I find that it gives me some digestive issues like gas and bloating.
Thanks for the info and advice. Over the past three years, I went from a keto, to a low-carb, to my current moderate-carb diet, and was familiar with the issues surrounding Erythritol. While I avoid it whenever I can, some influencers have said the health scare surrounding it was overblown. I can’t taste Stevia’s aftertaste that everyone else seems to notice, and I use it in for coffee along with monk fruit, and they both work well for me. For baking, I lean on Allulose, and while it’s only half as sweet as an equal quantity of sugar, since giving up added sugar I can’t tolerate anything too sweet so I don’t mind that. I just found a simple recipe online that I’m going to try today to see if it makes a cookie. I’ll report back with what I find out.
In addition, aspartame breaks down under heat, making it unsuitable as a baking ingredient.
My theory on artificial sweeteners is I don’t bother with them much. There is a problem with all of them.
My daughter often cooks sweets and just lessens the sugar content. Not just for my diabetic diet needs, the kids don’t need it either.
She’s experimented with lots of regular recipes. With good success.
The trick in the end is to limit yourself to one prepared (by you or store bought) treat.
It’s hard. You see a plate of brownies or cookies and it’s difficult to pass by.
I assume you’re baking for more than yourself. Normal (not dieting or restricted) persons will not like the cookies you want to make. If you can fool them into believing they are regular cookies, they’ll just think you can’t bake good cookies. Plus it’s not nice to fake people out(in fact it can be dangerous).
If you’re baking just for you. Do you see yourself just eating one? If you want to eat the whole plate, that is another problem. A problem keto/artificially sweetened cookies won’t fix.
Just make your regular “great” cookies and eat one. Save one for tomorrow and give the rest to friends and family. You’ll get a nice treat and so will they.
I think all this eating/cooking your way healthy or thin diets create false expectations and will result in failure.
Small portions is much more reliable. Don’t grab a cookie everytime you walk by the plate. Only way.
I live alone and do all my own cooking. I avoid added sugar like the plague. I am making these cookies for myself, and yes, I can just eat just one, or maybe two if they are small, as a reward for being good all week. I want to make a dozen and freeze them, taking out one or two on the weekend to enjoy. My days of sitting in front of the TV and eating a row of Oreo cookies are long gone.
Great. I like that.
Try the Maebelle.com cookie.
I think that cookie recipe hits all your needs/wants.
Good luck.
I think I’ve found my sugar-free cookie recipe! Katrin Nurenberger created a “Keto Chocolate Chip Cookie” made with almond flour, eggs, heavy cream, butter, granulated sweetener (I used Monk Fruit), vanilla extract, and sugar-free dark chocolate chips. If you want to check it out, you can find the recipe here. I made it last night; it was quick and easy, with 13 minutes of baking time.
Note that this cookie is calorie-dense, so if you’re looking for a low-calorie treat, this isn’t it. It doesn’t taste quite as good as a regular sugar-and-white-flour cookie would, but it satisfied me well enough.
I will continue looking around, but so far this seems to be as close as I can get to what I’m looking for. She also posted a “Keto Peanut Butter” cookie recipe, which I will also try. The recipe for that cookie is here.
Just a gentle reminder about granulated sweeteners advertised as being Stevia or Monk Fruit…
Like you said, maybe the Erythritol warnings are overblown, but it’s always good to make an informed choice.
I couldn’t agree with you more, but in this case, according to Google AI, “Recent studies suggest that while Erythritol is recognized as safe by the FDA and does not raise blood sugar, it may not be as harmless as previously thought. Research links high consumption to increased cardiovascular risks, including blood clotting, heart attack, and stroke. It may also cause digestive issues like bloating or diarrhea in large amounts”. I think the key words here are “large amounts”, and I never come close to eating a large amount of it. I try to avoid it whenever possible, which is almost always.
Ok then, so did your granulated monk fruit that you used have a different bulking agent than Erythritol? If so, I’d be interested in knowing what brand or type you used. I don’t think monk fruit extract alone can be turned into a granular sweetener-- I think it needs some sort of bulking agent.
Of course, you’re right. I used “Monk Fruit in the Raw”, which I assumed was pure monk fruit but has erythritol in it. I used that because the recipe called for a “granulated sweetener”, and I wanted it to be sweeter than using Allulose, which I normally use for baking. My next batch will be made with powdered Allulose, to see if it makes a big difference to either texture or taste/sweetness.
Yeah, it’s downright deceptive how they do that. My wife once bought me from Costco a giant container of granulated ‘Monk Fruit and Stevia!’ in huge lettering for my coffee. Absolutely nothing about ‘Erythritol’ anywhere on the packaging until I happened to read the ingredient list.
It looks like granulated stevia is a good substitute for granulated monk fruit, at least with regard to sweetness, compared to granulated allulose, particularly since I don’t mind stevia’s aftertaste. I will stop using monk fruit, assuming there is none available without erythritol, as soon as I run out of it, which will be fairly soon.