At just 2g net carbs a serving and with a wonderful crisp texture, this keto cinnamon toast crunch cereal might just be the ultimate low carb breakfast (or fun treat!).
Grain Free & Keto Cinnamon Toast Crunch 🥛
Now Extra Crunchy!
We’ve got grain free keto cinnamon toast crunch cereal, and we’re (most definitely!) sharing. Here’s your childhood’s cereal bowl dream, low carb and with all non-processed ingredients. And most definitely, one of my favorite sweet treats we’ve cooked up as of late.
Who doesn’t remember getting home from school, and devouring a bowl of good-old cinnamon toast crunch with iced-cold milk. Or that late-night snack. That flavor will forever be engrained in our tastebuds. And since we’re in this woe for good, we thought we’d revive this classic for the sake of nostalgia.
Though do note that the taste cannot be replicated exactly, blame it on artificial flavorings, refined sugars and processed carbohydrates. But trust me when I say that it will more than satisfy your cinnamon toast crunch cravings. And more.
And talking about ideal, you can always freeze half the dough for a rainy day. 🌧
Keto-fied
Keeping keto macros in mind, aside from making this classic cereal low carb, I made sure to introduce a good amount of healthy fats into the mix.
And I absolutely adore grass-fed butter as the fat here. Though do note that coconut butter can be subbed in, just the resulting cereal will be denser and therefore slightly less crunchy.
So at 2g net carbs, I find these keto cinnamon toast crunch to be a very good deal. Particularly compared to the whooping 19g net carbs of the original!
Though let’s face it, just like with the original, you might be doubling the serving size on occasion always. Still, 4g net carbs!
Essentially a cookies & milk sorta thing, it makes for one truly special keto breakfast treat.
The Deets
Creaming the butter properly with the sweeter is paramount here to build a nice structure for the cereal (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.
The Flours
I found that super fine almond flour did a super duper awesome 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
Erythritol lends a very similar crunch and chew to sugar for crisp cookies, and no other low carb natural sweetener does that (xylitol takes up to a day to crunch up and will result in chewy cereal!).
My current favorite for these guys? Lakanto golden without a doubt. Least cooling effect, nice maple-like taste. But Swerve and Pyure (at half the amount) are awesome too.
As for the ‘sugar’ cinnamon topping, you can either carry on with erythritol or use xylitol (with a preference for the later, as it has less of a cooling effect).
And if using xylitol, make sure to be careful if you have a pup or cat around the house, as it’s highly toxic to the little guys! 🐕
The Cut-Up
This really depends how OCD you are (needless to say, I rank high on the scale). But please forget your pastry cutter or knife here, it’s all about the ruler.
Wash up a ruler and use one of its edges to press down on the dough and cut it up. Then take a small fork and prick down each square to avoid excessive puffing.
But note that I timed myself and it took 3 minutes 40 seconds to cut up and do the pricking for the whole batch. i.e. totally worth it for the sake of a true bowl of keto cinnamon toast crunch.
And… the video story!
Keto Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal
Ingredients
- 192 g almond flour
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum or 1 tsp flax meal
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 80 g grass-fed butter at room temperature*
- 96 g golden erythritol or erythritol-based sweeteners
- 1 egg
For the cinnamon topping:
- 28 g grass-fed butter melted
- 2 tablespoons xylitol or Swerve
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Instructions
- See recipe video for guidance!
- Add almond flour, cinnamon, xanthan gum, baking soda, and salt to a medium bowl. Whisk until thoroughly combined and set aside.
- Cream butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer, 2-3 minutes. Add in sweetener and continue to beat until thoroughly light and fluffy and much of the sweetener has dissolved.
- Add in 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 cereal dough with cling film (saran wrap) and refrigerate for at least an hour and up to 3 days.
- Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C.
- Roll out the dough between two pieces of parchment paper until nice and thin. Using a ruler, cut dough lengthwise and then crosswise into squares. Prick each piece with a small fork (optional).
- Transfer parchment paper with the keto cinnamon toast crunch to a baking sheet or tray, and place in the freezer for 10 minutes prior to baking. The shaped dough can be frozen for up to 3 months, and baked straight from the freezer (adding 2-3 minutes more to the baking time).
- Bake for 8-12 minutes, until fully golden (depending on size and thickness). Keep an eye out for them, and note that if you like them crisp you'll want to push the baking time as much as possible (until deep golden).
- Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon 'sugar'. You can also do this prior to baking for a more 'crusty' result, both work well just depending on your preference so feel free to experiment.
- Allow to cool for ten minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely, as they'll continue to crunch up (this may take a few hours for the sweetener to harden up again!).
- Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
Hi, I’m wondering if I can substitute golden monk fruit in place of golden erythritol-based sweetener. If yes, would it be the same amount? Can’t wait to make this CTC.
I couldn’t find a video link, or am I missing it? Can’t wait to trying these!
Thanks!
Hi Richard! If you’re running an ad blocker that might be why you can’t see it xo!
Great recipes, but if I turn off my ad blocker, the site grinds to a halt and is non-functional. Really bad…
Wow! It’s so delicious! I’m not sure I will put milk on them I just tasted them and it’s so good it will be perfect to bring them in a bag and eat them like a snack at work .It takes time to make it but it worth it! A big big thank you for this recipe.
When you rolled out the dough, you used a “flour” to prevent sticking. What did you use?
Hi Paola, thanks for the brilliant content. In the video you sprinkle the dough with something before you roll, presumably to help prevent sticking – what is it that you sprinkle please?
Just made these with sukrin good for the dough and lakanto monkfruit w/erythritol for the topping, delicious! I had some trouble rolling it out thin enough so alot of the middle was a bit thicker and bready but still delicious with some almond milk! Next time I’ll use my new tortilla press (already tried your tortilla recipe, amazing!) to get the dough thickness uniform and work in batches! Thank you so much for your amazing recipes! 😊
Hi Paola!
I loved your Chocolate Chip cookie recipe, but I did have one question about it, and this recipe, that I couldn’t find explained, and that is why do you use only baking soda instead of baking powder, or a combination of BS and BP? I don’t see any acid in either recipe to activate the baking soda on its own. With the cookies I ended up using a 1/4 tsp of both instead of the 1/2tsp of just the BS, and the result was fantastic, but I didn’t try just the BS to begin with to see what the real difference might be.
Also, with this recipe for the cereal have you tried using allulose in place of the Lakanto Golden, or for the topping? I just can’t take the cooling effect, but wasn’t sure about the “crispiness” with using allulose.
Hey Paola!!! This recipe looks AMAZING!!! I’m hoping to make this this morning, but my fam and I cannot do dairy. I saw that you can sub coconut butter, but we don’t have that on hand right now. Could I use palm shortening, or coconut oil?
Hey, is Xanthan gum necessary for this recipe?
Can’t wait to try it!
The dough is MUCH more fragile without it… I highly suggest it for Keto baking in general (and a little bag lasts aaaages!) xo!
Ahhh, ok. Thanks!
You do not have to use Xanthan gum. A lot of keto bakers use psyllium powder with the same results
This would be incorrect advice, they don’t behave exactly the same xo!
Trust me guys, I would know!
My dough came up so crumbly and not pliable. Not crumbly in a dry way, more of a wet way. Can’t even roll or hold its shape. Even after refrigerate it prior rolling, still not pliable. Does the powdered sweetener needs to be 96 gram? That’s the only thing I didn’t put in since I used 1-2 drops liquid pure sucralose which a little bit gets a long way in terms of sweetness. I creamed the butter just like the directions said.
Any tips how to remedy this? I put the dough in the freezer for now until I figured a way how to salvage it.
yes, you probably went wrong with your choice of sweetener. you substituted a dry ingredient for a wet one, that’s a major difference even though they’re both sweeteners. i know you made this last year, but maybe try again with a dry sweetener and hopefully you can enjoy how tasty they are! 🙂
Paola,
Your recipes never fail to impress me and my husband! We are blown away by what we have been able to make during our keto journey. Thank you for posting! We can’t wait to try the rest of them.
My kids LOVE this recipe, but I only make it occasionally because it takes a lot if time and they devour a double batch within 2 days of all my hard work!! Thanks so much for all your great recipes. We also love the tortillas and ginger-spice muffins!!
As it is my first time baking this I wanted to do around 4 servings to test how I respond to this. It says 0.4 of egg…. How do I do that?!
Hope to hear back from you. Thank you
Just made these and it turned out pretty good, with some adjustments. I didn’t have xathan Gum so I just used golden flaxseed meal. I also didn’t halve the amount of confectioners Swerve bc I like a really sweet cereal. I divided my dough into three parts, rolled them as thin as possible. First batch got burnt to a crisp at 350 degrees in my oven, so I decreased the temp to 300 for the last two batches. I found it easier to brush on the topping and cut them into squares while they were still hot out od the oven using a pizza cutter. They seem to be crisping up pretty good but I may dry them out more in my air fryer later at a low temp. Thanks for the recipe! I always miss cereal like crazy when I’m doing keto.
Thank you for posting this. I found your recipe because a I got an ad across my FB feed for low carb cereal. It’s $30 for 9 cups lol. The great thing about some low carb foods not being so readily available is it is forcing me to learn how to make my own which is turning out to be fun and something to be proud of.
What if I don’t have a hand mixer can I just use a whisker? Will it turn out the same?
I tried using a whisk in similar recipe. It was a disaster. You’ll appreciate the power of a hand mixer.
The flexibility of the loops in the whisk make it almost impossible. The hand mixer beaters are stronger.
Disappointed. Was ready to make this and put all ingredients into MyFitnessPal and says 16 Carbs per serving!!!! We double checked every item nutrition facts against the packages all correct. Then double checked all your links and again all adding up to 16 carbs not 4 as you have listed. So sad we can have it now 😥
You’re counting sugar alcohols as regular carbs 😉
Don’t count the sugar alcohols because your body doesn’t absorb these, and subtract any fibers from the carbs. 🙂
I was wondering if powdered or confectioners swerve will be ok?
Yup! It’s erythritol
I don’t have the time, patience, or ingredients to make this! Can you just sell this???? Kidding, not kidding lol.
😉
The DOUGH is AMAZING!! If I ever stop eating that and get it into my fridge to harden I bet the cereal will be awesome! But the dough…mmmmmm!!!
😂!!!
Je ne trouve pas le liens vidéo pour la recette.Merci.
Hi Paola, I’m so excited to try this recipe! Do you think Sukrin Gold would work as well as the Lakanto Golden? I have Sukrin Gold around the house, but will order the Lakanto if it’s really that much better. Thank you!
Thank you for this recipe! It turned out beautifully, just like you said. My only difficulty was, after fully cooling, then cutting, it would NOT crisp up….after many hours! What did the trick was putting it all back in the oven at 170 F for a few hours to dehydrate it. That worked fabulously!!!
Can you use regular sugar if you are just gluten free (but not on a keto diet)?
Yeah def! It’s 1-1
Thanks! Lots of healthy goodies are going to come my daughter’s way, thanks to your website. She has celiac, but gets some sugar treats on occasion, so we don’t need to cut back on the sugar. We made your quiche for her recital the other day – all 3 pies got gobbled up!
Paola, you must be a saint with angel wings, Bless you..
What is the “flour” substance you use in the video to roll these out?
Had the same question. Anyone know. 🙂
Hello. Has the recipe video for the Cinnamon Toast Crunch been removed? I have searched & can’t seem to find it?
Amazing!
Cinnamon toast crunch was my favourite as a child, and these taste very similar to them.
I’ll admit I was skeptical that it would actually taste and look like cereal, but it does. They were all gone the night I made them..
Two questions though-
1. I rolled out the dough, put in the freezer for 10 minutes and cut into squares prior to baking, but when it came out, I had to cut it again. Was my dough too thick?
2. Everything in the middle of the pan came out perfect, but the edges were burnt by the time the rest was ready. I baked on 180 c, should I try reducing the temperature the next time?
And again, thanks for another amazing recipe! I tried your cocoa puffs as well and they came out literally perfect, so I’ll rate it too.
Maybe I missed it, but I couldn’t find a video link. Looking forward to trying these!
Is there a link to the video? My add blocker is turned off.
wait so how long do i actually have to leave it in the freezer for? up to one hour and three days?
what does “up to one hour and three days” mean? i leave it frozen for an hour and take it out for three days? what?
You leave it in the fridge up to an hour. But if you won’t bake it that same day you have up to three days to leave it in the fridge.
* not in the freezer
That’s how I understood it, anyone correct me if I’m wrong
No it says for step 6 refrigerate it for no less than an hour and at max 3 days.
and for step 9 (after you cut the cereal pieces) to freeze it for 10 minutes before baking or you can freeze it for as long as 3 months