Perfectly soft, lightly tangy and ultra cinnamon-y! Some recipes translate outstandingly well into their gluten free and low carb counterparts, and these keto snickerdoodles fall right into that category… at less than 1g net carb.
Gluten Free & Keto Snickerdoodles
Perfectly Soft!
I’m also happy to announce that these keto snickerdoodles just so happen to be one of the easiest cookies on the site! There’s no chilling time and no special methodology, just simply cookie goodness in thirty minutes.
My one advice though, is that you cream your butter very well until it’s light and fluffy. Since we’re using sugar alcohols rather than sugar, it won’t get quite as fluffy or smooth… but! I’ve still noticed a huge difference in the cookies texture wise. So cream away pretty please!
Oh, and these are also ridiculously low carb- think just 0.7g net carbs a pop!
Looking for more special cookies to kick off the holiday season?! Check out our keto amaretti, snowball cookies (!!) and gingerbread cookies!
The Flours
Nothing too fancy! To turn snickerdoodle cookies keto, I used a mix of super fine almond flour, coconut flour and a touch of xanthan gum. (See links for specific brands I use).
Oh, and I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to snickerdoodles and will always advocate for using cream of tartar (as tradition calls!).
Some recipes sub the baking soda and cream of tartar with baking powder (same difference sorta thing in ‘general baking’), but for some reason you don’t quite get the same tangy kick or texture in my opinion.
The Sweetener
Perhaps surprisingly, getting the sweetener right for these keto snickerdoodles is even more important than the flours. You’ve got a few options though.
Think erythritol (some cooling aftertaste, but best texture), and allulose (no aftertaste, but more fragile) or xylitol (same as allulose!) (no aftertaste, but more fragile).
Keep in mind (!!) that with allulose and xylitol, your cookies will spread much more. So you might not want to pre-flatten them before baking, and I always suggest you do a test run with one (as even from brand to brand, differences can be quite big). And also keep in mind that your cookies will take much longer to set (popping them in the freezer once cool speeds this up though).
And if using xylitol, make sure to be careful if you have a pup around the house, as it’s highly toxic to the little guys! 
How much sweetener? I prefer to use 1/3 cup of erythritol as opposed to the traditional 3/4 cup. This lessens the cooling effect and keeps them lightly sweetened. I then give them a light roll in the cinnamon ‘sugar’ with allulose, which has no aftertaste for me once the cinnamon is in.
Oh! And it might just be me over-analyzing things (shocker!), but I found that erythritol version gave me no cooling aftertaste while the cookies were warm (so fresh from the oven or rewarmed slightly).
And… the video story!
(Perfectly Soft!) Keto Snickerdoodles
Oh, and if baking with cups rather than grams is your thing, just click on US Cups for an instant conversion.
Ingredients
- 120 g almond flour
- 16 g coconut flour
- 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 113 g grass-fed unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1/3-3/4 cup erythritol allulose or xylitol, to taste (I use 1/3 cup)*
- 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 egg
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F/190°C and line a baking tray with parchment paper or a baking mat.
- Add almond flour, coconut flour, xanthan gum, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt to a medium bowl. Whisk until thoroughly combined and set aside.
- Cream butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer until softened, 1-2 minutes. Add in sweetener and continue to cream until light and fluffy (about 8 minutes). Add in vanilla extract and 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.
- Scoop out cookie rounds using a tablespoon for guidance. Roll in cinnamon 'sugar' mix and flatten slightly. Note that because keto cookies don't spread much, how much you pre-flatten them will dictate their final texture. Like them thicker and softer?! Leave them rounder! Also note that a few of you have reported back with your cookies 'spreading too much' (i.e. some erythritol brands are behaving like real cookies!), so I suggest you guys do a trial with one cookie to get the perfect texture!
- Transfer cookies to prepared tray and bake for 6-8 minutes, until just very lightly golden. Allow to cool for 10 minutes and enjoy!
- Store in an airtight container for 3-5 days. Note that the shaped dough can be frozen for up to 3 months. Simply freeze them shaped, thaw them out in the fridge overnight, roll in cinnamon sugar and bake away.
Notes
The Sweetener
Perhaps surprisingly, getting the sweetener right for these keto snickerdoodles is even more important than the flours. You’ve got a few options though. Think erythritol (some cooling aftertaste, but best texture), and allulose (no aftertaste, but more fragile) or xylitol (same as allulose!) (no aftertaste, but more fragile). Keep in mind (!!) that with allulose and xylitol, your cookies will spread much more. So you might not want to pre-flatten them before baking, and I always suggest you do a test run with one (as even from brand to brand, differences can be quite big). And also keep in mind that your cookies will take much longer to set (popping them in the freezer once cool speeds this up though). And if using xylitol, make sure to be careful if you have a pup around the house, as it’s highly toxic to the little guys!
How much sweetener? I prefer to use 1/3 cup of erythritol as opposed to the traditional 3/4 cup. This lessens the cooling effect and keeps them lightly sweetened. I then give them a light roll in the cinnamon 'sugar' with allulose, which has no aftertaste for me once the cinnamon is in.
Oh! And it might just be me over-analyzing things (shocker!), but I found that erythritol version gave me no cooling aftertaste while the cookies were warm (so fresh from the oven or rewarmed slightly).
Have been making these snickerdoodles for over a year. Never thought to let you know how great they are. I use a monk fruit and erythritol blend from “SoNurished” as sweetener. They are perfect to me. I may try omitting cinnamon and adding “Lily’s” dark chocolate chips. No extra carbs there. Thank you
Great! These are so light and airy, and they taste like regular snickerdoodles. I got a batch of 29 cookies that I baked for six minutes. They spread quite a bit on the pan even though I used erythritol. Yum!
Can you use monk fruit sweetener instead and if so what would the quantity be and what would the carb value be?
Many thanks!
If by monkfruit sweetener you mean Lakanto (i.e. erythritol with a bit of monkfruit!) definitely yes! Carbs stay the same xo!
I’ve made these three or four times, and I can tell you that they’re my absolute favorite keto cookie of all time (second place are your peanut butter cookies).
One thing that’s clear when baking with sugar substitutes is that the particular sweetener or mix of sweeteners you use really affects the final result. Monkfruit sweetener is almost always a mix of monkfruit and erythritol, so if you only use monkfruit, the cookies will be harder and will have a strong erythritol cooling sensation in the mouth. Just allulose, and you get a nice sweetness but a very soft, almost mushy cookie that spreads too much. That’s a shame, because to me allulose is the best tasting single sugar substitute.
I proportion my sweetener so that 3/4 of it is King Arthur sugar free sweetener, which itself is a mix of stevia, allulose, monkfruit and erythritol, and 1/4 is Lakanto monkfruit sweetener (which does have erythritol). To me the King Arthur is the best tasting sweetener mix on the market (just my opinion). When I get the mixture right the cookies are just firm enough (after they cool!) and don’t have an overwhelming erythritol cooling sensation. I use King Arthur or just allulose with cinnamon for the outer dusting, because they taste the best and nothing you put on the outside of the cookie will affect its firmness.
If anyone has had good success using other sweeteners I’d appreciate if you’d let me know.
Mark thanks so much for sharing in such detail! I literally just got the King Arthur sweetener delivered yesterday to try (because, like you said, keto sweeteners in cookies really are a pain lol). Thanks again for the pointers, now I’m extra excited to try 🙂
Long time fan of your work. I love that I can experiment with your base recipes. Most of the time I end up going back to your version. But occasionally I have an inspiration that started with your recipe.
A month ago I made them as sugar cookies (no topping) and I added Lillys salted caramel chocolate chips to them. It worked well together and everyone loved them. Today I tried one Batch of them as you wrote it and they were excellent. I tried another batch where I put some caramel sauce on top and baked them. The flavor was good but I had to cook them longer and it didn’t do what I thought it was going to do in reality. So all in all I would probably make these just the way you wrote it ❤️ Thanks for doing the heavy lifting so that I can play around.
Ooooooh Evelyn that sounds like a ridiculously *great* idea! Thank you for sharing your experiments with me 🙂
I tell you, I do a lot of “keto” cooking and baking, and I can say without reservation that this is one of the best recipes, if not the best, that I’ve found. Certainly the best sweet recipe. These cookies are delicious, just like regular snickerdoodles.
I was going to make a purchase of a bunch of keto cookies from a well known keto site, I had everything in my cart ($60+ worth), but I cancelled my order after I made these.
Buying keto snacks can be ridiculously expensive, so it makes me really happy to find a way to make something that tastes better than what I can buy.
Well isn’t this super duper awesome to hear Mark! Glad I can be of service (and save you guys some $!!!) 😉
I am allergic to nuts so no almond flour used. I substituted sunflower flour and converted the baking soda to powder to prevent the chemical reaction from the baking soda with the sun flour and these were amazing.
Thanks for letting me know this works Rachel!
I printed this recipe for later and accidentally printed the metric version. I looked up the amounts of almond flour and coconut flour in conversions. I thought, wow, thats not much flour. Got it all mixed and thought no way this is right. I got back on this recipe and clicked the US cups version. No wonder it didn’t look right, I had to add quite a bit more. Your metric version is way off.
Hi Penny! Thanks so much for taking the time to write, can you tell me what you find to be way off? I just doubled checked it and the conversions look correct. And do note that this recipe has been around for a few years now, usually when I do make a mistake (it happens!) so many of you help me catch it asap! xo!
I just made these and they’re great. I have to agree with Penny, though. When weighing out the almond flour, I only get 1 cup out of 120g. The English conversion says 1 1/4 cups which works better, I think, in this recipe and is what I used. Just fyi in case it matters to anyone. The nutrition listed is also based on 120 g of almond flour and should be adjusted higher if using 1 1/4 cups of the flour.
Anyway, thank you for the recipe. They came out great.
Hi Mark! I’m not sure I’m understanding your question… because every time I measure almond flour 1 cup = 96g? Alas, thank you for taking the time to share your experience (always appreciate it so much!)
And I’m glad to hear they came out great in the end 😉
Excellent! Made these as the recipe stated but added 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg.
After baking, I let them cool 10 minutes and popped them in the freezer to form.
Promptly ate two cookies…Hallelujah! So good!
Super yummy. I used 1/3 cup xylitol and they came out perfect! Love your recipes
What would be the results if I were to use Stevia? Or Monk fruit sweetener? Have you tried either of these?
It won’t really work Kaela, you need the erythritol for that crisp cookie texture 🙁
wow
They were a hit at the office Christmas party. I made them like the recipe using 1/3 cup allulose keto friendly sweetener and clear gelatin instead of xanthum gum. I baked them for 9-10 minutes and they turned out golden brown and soft.
I made these today, this recipe is a keeper!
Hi Paola,
When will you be making spaghetti pasta? Love your 1st one!
Very tasty! I used powdered Erythritol for the dough and my cookies are soft like a pancake. Wondering if I would have used regular if it would of had a little harder texture? Taste was great though. I might play around with this recipe again some time.
These cookies are delicious. On my second batch, because the first batch went so fast.
Followed the recipe exactly as written, right down to using 1/3 cup erythritol (granulated). Ended up too flat initially, so then froze the dough balls and baked at 350 F, which yielded thicker middles, but still with flat edges.
Otherwise found the flavor and texture to be excellent. Any insight as to how to get these as thick as the ones pictured?
These turned out wonderfully! Only change I made was I used 180g almond flour and no coconut flour (I really dislike coconut and I’m nervous some coconut flavour comes out in the flour). Texture was great and the cinnamon flavour was to-die-for. Will make again!
I’m ok where coconut is concerned, but not in snickerdoodles.
I just made the recipe for the first time, exactly as written. For the sweetener, I used about 3 T Lakanto monkfruit (contains erythritol) and a little over 2 T allulose (so about 1/3 cup sweetner).
The coconut flavor, with just 16 g coconut flour (2 T) is just way too strong for snickerdoodles. Next time, I’m going to omit the coconut flour and try with 180 g almond flour, as Tatiana says.
I’d also advise using parchment on the baking sheet – that allows you to pull the cookies off quickly without them falling apart, if they happen to be getting a little over done. I think they’d tend to fall apart even if you let them cool completely on the baking sheet without parchment.
As the recipe is written, the cookies taste fine, BUT they don’t really have the true snickerdoodle taste; I’m hoping it’s mainly the coconut flour that is the problem. I’m a bit of a snickerdoodle purist, and before changing to a keto diet, would make the basic Betty Crocker snickerdoodle recipe, which I think is perfection as far as snickerdoodles go (purchased snickerdoodles don’t even come close to home made). Might need a bit more cream of tartar, too.
I appreciate the recipes on this site – I’ve made a few others (the keto meatballs are good, with almond flour).
These are the best! Not only are they delicious as snickerdoodles, but as “sugar” cookies (just don’t roll them in cinnamon). I can’t make enough to last more than a day in our house! Thanks for the recipe!!
my dad recently started keto, although I’ve been making keto desserts for a few years now, as i am sugar free. but let me just say these hands down are fabulous the texture gets better as they sit, I used swerve and lanako as my sweeteners.
I love all your recipes, clear, concise instructions. Thank you for making health eating delicious and easy
Can you use regular Sweetner, like from Walmart ?
This recipe is amazing. The cookies are soft, lightly sweet and delicious. I love to enjoy one or two with my coffee in the morning.
I am new to cooking with almond and coconut flour. I am trying to consume less sugars and carbs. I love cookies and did not think I would be able to eat snickerdoodles one of my childhood favs. These came out perfect. I used granular monk fruit. They were so good. Thanks. I might be able to do low carb as a new life style.
Hello!,
Can I skip the xanthan gum?