Just like the Girl Scout original, expect a properly crisp chocolate cookie all wrapped up in a (to-die-for!) minted chocolate covering. In fact, not much is lost, if at all (!!), in these gluten free and keto thin mints inspired cookies!
Gluten Free & Keto Thin Mints! 🍃
Because The Girl Scouts Are In Town 👧🏾👧🏻👧🏼
If you’re American, Girl Scout cookies need no introduction. If you’re not, worry not, because one bite in and you’ll be fully acquainted with these most-addictive of cookies! My perennial favorites will forever be Thin Mints: think a nice and crisp chocolate cookie all wrapped up in a to-die-for minted chocolate covering.
i.e. ideal to dunk in milk. 🥛
And for real, not much (if at all) is lost in this gluten free and keto version. If anything, you’re gaining freshness and flavor. Which simply means that next time you hear a knock on your door, you’ll be able to buy a bunch to support the girls; but without fear that they’ll end up in your belly in a matter of minutes.
Plus, less than 1g net carbs a pop! I calculated nutrition info to yield two dozen cookies, but fact is I got more like 30 2-inch cookies (counting scraps is hard y’all!).
The Deets
Creaming the butter properly with the sweeter is paramount here to build a nice structure for the cookies (think rise and crunch!). And creaming with sweetener, in case you haven’t done it before, takes a bit longer to incorporate than with good-old sugar. But don’t give up, and keep going until you’ve got the sweetener well incorporated into soft and fluffy butter.
The other indispensable thing, is that the dough be thoroughly chilled before rolling and baking. Why? The butter in the dough has to solidify once again before you can roll it out and cut it up. Think 1 to 2 hours (or overnight).
And if the dough becomes too sticky while rolling and cutting, just pop it in the freezer for a few (and a sprinkle of cocoa powder always helps too).
The Chocolate
Cocoa or cacao? Both work great, just know that quality really matters here. Our favorite will forever be the Dutch-processed alkaline cocoa Valrhona, known to be one of (if not the) best cocoas in the world. But feel free to use a raw cacao powder (arguably more nutritional perks here), though keep in mind that your cookies will be lighter in color and more reddish in hue. Both are well and good, as long as they’re unsweetened.
How dark? Talking dark chocolate versus milk is a sure way to divide a crowd! And we like these keto thin mints with a nice and dark chocolate cookie, dipped into a 70-75% minted chocolate. But since we know dark isn’t for everyone, check the recipe notes for a more ‘milk chocolate’ version of these stellar cookies.
And for the chocolate-peppermint coating? Thin mints are traditionally coated with dark chocolate, and anywhere from 70-75% is truly ideal (think Lily’s dark chocolate chips). But if dark chocolate ain’t your jam, just go for milk. As long as it melts, you’re good to go.
The Flours
Thin mint cookies are traditionally a wheat cookie. To make them gluten free and keto, we found that super fine almond flour did a killer job (solo!). Add a touch of xanthan gum, and we’re golden.
In terms of brands, for the almond either Anthony’s or WellBees work great. Both are super fine grinds.
The Sweetener
This recipe works best with erythritol, without a doubt (Lakanto is my fav!) . Not only is it roughly 1-to-1 in sweetness to sugar (and the volume is important here), but it lends a very similar crunch and chew. No other sweetener does that.
Also keep in mind that, as much as I’m fans of allulose and xylitol in general, they result in chewy rather than crisp cookies.. So no xylitol or allulose here please.
And in case you’re wondering about Pyure, I’m never a fan of stevia (in any shape or form) coming in contact with chocolate (a not-so-nice aftertaste). But if you’re immune to it, technically Pyure also works here.
Girl Scout Cookies: Keto Thin Mints!
Ingredients
For the keto thin mint cookies
- 130 g almond flour *see. notes for a 'milk chocolate' version
- 65 g cocoa powder *see. notes for a 'milk chocolate' version
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 80 g unsalted (grass-fed!) butter at room temperature
- 128 g erythritol
- 1 egg
For dipping
- 340 g dark chocolate such as Lily's, melted
- 1-3 teaspoons coconut oil as needed (to adjust thickness)
- 1/4-1 teaspoon peppermint extract to taste
Instructions
- Add almond flour, cocoa powder, xanthan gum, salt and baking soda to a medium bowl. Whisk until thoroughly combined and set aside.
- Cream butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer, 1 minute. Add in sweetener and continue to beat until light and fluffy, about 8 minutes.
- Add in the egg, mixing until just incorporated. The mixture will appear slightly 'broken' (i.e. not thoroughly smooth).
- With your mixer on low, add in half of your flour mixture- mixing until just incorporated. Mix in the rest.
- Wrap cookie dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour (or overnight).
- Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
- Roll out the dough between two pieces of parchment paper and cutout the rounds (thin mints are roughly 2 inches).
- Transfer cutout cookies onto prepared baking tray and place in the freezer for 15 minutes prior to baking.
- Bake for 8-12 minutes. Since the cookies are dark already and you can't guide yourself by color, I suggest doing a trial with one cookie if possible. When ready, the cookies will have puffed somewhat and smell amazing (this is our best cue here), but you'll want to push the baking time to get them nice and crisp. So just keep an eye out for them.
- Allow to cool for ten minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely, as they'll continue to crunch up (because of the sugar alcohol, this may take a few hours!).
- Once cookies are cool and crunchy, melt chocolate and coconut oil in a water bath or microwave and incorporate peppermint extract little by little to taste. Dip the cookies into the chocolate using a fork and transfer to a parchment paper until set. You can always pop them in the freezer for a few minutes to instantly set them.
- Store in an airtight container for up to a week or in the freezer for a couple months. And keep in mind that these cookies can be baked, once shaped, straight from the freezer (the batter keeps well frozen for up to 3 months).
Very good recipe. Yummy, crisp chocolatey-minty cookies. I baked them on parchment and they came out great. Maybe I rolled them too thin but my batch was over 50 cookies.
Oh wow 50 cookies Suzanne! Glad you enjoyed 🙂
These are so so good! Many thanks for the recipe. Once again, you hit it out of the park.
Wow – you have a lot of great recipes but this is hall of fame. One tweak I did was to roll it in a long log – refrigerate for about 1/2 and hour and re-roll the butter is so soft that it flattens on one side a tiny bit (and I may be a bit OCD) . . . anyway, then pop back in for overnight. Then you can just slice off thinly and they are all perfect sized. I cooked half the batch and rolled the rest in parchment and saran and popped the log in the freezer for a few days (not long as these went fast and a new batch needed to be baked).
BIG QUESTION – what is the serving size for the nutritional information you provided?
She said it was based on 24 cookies.
These came out so great! My fiancee was very impressed and friends have asked for some now so it looks like I’m making another batch today. And they seemed to stay really crispy when frozen (which is the best way to eat them anyway!). Thanks so much! And I love the veto Oreo recipe too…. I think I prefer them over regular Oreo cookies!
These cookies need not be rolled out. Much easier to roll into 1″ balls and press down with meat mallot/tenderizer. Much less laborious..
Cookie portion is wonderful. I, too, used bakers chocolate instead of Lily’s chips. BIG mistake! Tried sweetening withe powdered Erythritol which caused chocolate to clump while in the double boiler. Added heavy cream which helped some. What a mess. Now I have 48 (yes I made them smaller) ok Keto thin mints. Too expensive and too much labor to throw away. They’re eatable just not what I expected.
Can you please advise if the nutritional information was calculated for just the cookie or included the chocolate peppermint coating.
I bought some silicone muffin trays on Amazon, and put one tablespoon full of dough in each space and press into a circle with the back of the spoon. This way, I don’t have roll and cut the dough, and no parchment paper to use. This my second time making these. I love them!!
Thank you for sharing this recipe!
Do you taste the coconut in the cookies? I’m not a huge fan of coconut.
Just to double check. It’s unsweetened dark chocolate I have unsweetened backers chocolate on hand? Or just a dark chocolate with lower carbs then most bars?
Do you mean to cut the cookies, freeze and then bake?
Wow, Paola! This recipe looks amazing!!! One thing though… I cannot have dairy right now. Is there a substitute I could use for the butter? I’d love your advice!
OMG this is the best keto dessert I’ve ever tasted!
Made these…had a mint craving. Used Doterra pepermint oil and it was fabulous (10 drops). I baked them a little too long at first but the dark chocolate helped that taste to fade away. Everyone raved about them. I loved them right out of the freezer as well…passed along the recipe several times and will make again. Thanks so much!
Man, this recipe was a pain in the butt to make, but oh so worth it in the end!!! These are even better than Girl Scout thin mints and my husband (who is obsessed with thin mints) agrees! I have made quite a few of your recipes and all of them have been incredible! You are making my keto journey a lot more easy and a lot more fun! Thank you!!!
I roll these in balls and flatten with a meat tenderizer…absolutely no need to tediously roll out this dough. They came out perfect..24 1″ balls. Squash, freeze, bake
Looking forward to trying these but have a question: Lily’s chocolate and I do not get along; would it be possible to use unsweetened baking chocolate or unsweetened chocolate chips and add powdered sweetener to taste for dipping the cookies in instead?
I am the same way. I reccomend getting 100% cacao baking chocolate. Make sure that you read the ingredients because some of them have sugar. Also, Trader Joe’s has erythritol sweetened chocolate bars, which doesn’t make me feel as bad as Lily’s. Lakanto makes their own sugar free chocolate chips and Sprouts now carries those, too.
Politley Butting in. Have you tried ChocZero? Its sweetened with Monkfruit only. I am NOT a fan of LIlys bars or chips myself. I dont like the aftertaste. ChocZero has some 70% little squares that melt like any other high quality chocolate and they work well for this. They also have bark and chips and white chocolate. I am not affiliated with them in any way I Just love the crap out of their product!!! Their milk chocolate hazlenut bark is so good it has to go on the no no shelf in my house. Hope that helps in some way.
Just a quick question. On the Nutrition Facts table it states “amount per serving”. I don’t know about you, but for me that used to be about a half a box (ha ha). But seriously how big is a serving? I’m hoping the it is more than just one cookie.
I was wondering the same thing!!!
These are so good! I think I convinced myself there was NO substitute for my beloved thin mints so I made these thinking I would be disappointed…but I was wrong! I made them up and put them in the freezer…and pull one (or two!) out whenever I’m craving one. They taste amazing -and the crunch is perfect! I’ll definitely be making these again!
So I messed up thinking I could just use unsweetened Baker’s chocolate instead of the Lilly’s chocolate. Do you have a tip on how to work with the Baker’s chocolate without it being to bitter? I m guessing add erythritol but how much and is there a specific method to incorporate it well?
O.M.G. I don’t love mint. I don’t (didn’t) go crazy for GS cookies. But these are hands down the best cookies. Ever.