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Yay! Fall is here! I absolutely love fall, with its gorgeous leaves, cooler temperatures, and all the yummy comfort food. Pumpkin desserts are one of my favorite things about fall!
I don’t bake much during the summer, because it’s hot and because we like to eat fresh garden produce. But then fall hits, with it’s cooler temperatures, and I always get a sudden hankering for baking.
Luckily, since I stopped eating grains about 5 years ago, (when I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s) and then went low-carb, I’ve learned how to convert most of my favorite recipes to Keto.
Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies are the first recipe I made over to gluten-free and sugar-free. I often don’t mind making my family regular desserts and just not eating them myself. But these cookies were always really hard to resist.
They aren’t terribly sweet, so you might want to snitch a bit of the dough before cooking and see if you want to increase the erythritol a bit.
These keto pumpkin chocolate chip cookies are soft and chewy, and since the carbs mainly come from the nutritious pumpkin, they aren’t so bad. I use Lily’s chocolate chips and sweeten the cookies with erythritol and stevia. Canned or fresh pumpkin will work interchangeably, but if you cook a fresh pumpkin, squeeze the excess moisture out after you puree it.
I’ve tried using the sugar-free chocolate chips from Walmart, since they’re cheaper, but they are made with malitol, a sugar alcohol that gives me severe gastric troubles. I can’t even eat three measly chocolate chips in a single cookie. I feel fine eating the Lily’s, and it almost helps that they’re expensive — I eat a whole lot less!
This recipe makes 3-dozen large cookies. I just freeze them all so I can have a treat with my family without always having to bake myself a separate treat.
Blend together (I use this “>immersion blender):
- 1 c. almond butter
- 1 c. cooked, pureed pumpkin
- 2 eggs
Make a well in the center for the dry ingredients:
- 1/4 c. coconut flour
- 1/4 c. erythritol
- 1/4 c. stevia
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. ginger
- 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp. cloves
Mix dry ingredients together thoroughly, then mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Add a bag of Lily’s dark chocolate chips and stir.
Scoop onto a well-greased baking sheet, flatten slightly (coconut flour makes the dough a little stiff, so it won’t spread out like other cookies — thus the need to flatten it) and bake for 15 minutes at 350F.
Just so you know, these cookies are very soft. They travel great frozen, but will fall apart in a lunch pail if not frozen.
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Kinda odd but it’s spring and I was wanting pumpkin cookies so I tried this out…. I substituted half coconut oil for 1/2 the almond butter so it needed more baking time but yes yummy!
Why not? Pumpkin is great all year! Glad they turned out yummy — I’m going to have to try that!
Can I use swerve instead of stevia? I see Erythritol and stevia both listed, but aren’t they the same thing? Sorry I’m new to keto baking. Can’t wait to try the recipe! Thank you!!
Yep, swerve will work great! It’s the same sweetness as sugar, so I’d just try 1/2 c. of swerve in place of the erythritol and the stevia. Stevia is extracted from the leaf of the stevia plant. Depending on the extraction process, it’s usually much sweeter than sugar. It doesn’t affect blood sugar at all, but it does have a bitter aftertaste, which is why it’s often mixed with another sweetener rather than used straight. I don’t usually notice the aftertaste, but my son is really sensitive to it. Erythritol is a sugar alcohol, created when yeast ferments glucose from corn or wheat starch. It also does not affect blood sugar, but it does cause gastric distress in some people. I prefer stevia to sugar alcohols because my gut is very sensitive to sugar alcohol fibers. They cause me to cramp painfully, even in small amounts. As you cook with them, you’ll develop your own preferences and learn how to use them interchangeably. Happy baking!
Can you substitute other flours for coconut? I usually have almond on hand. I know they have different properties, absorb liquid differently.
Yes, I frequently use almond flour in place of coconut flour, though I haven’t tried this recipe with almond yet. 1 cup of almond flour equals approximately 1/4 cup of coconut flour. In this recipe, I’d mix the cookies up using 1 c. almond flour, then chill the dough for an hour after mixing it all up since almond flour won’t make the dough as stiff as coconut flour. Then I’d bake one batch and see how they turned out. If they spread too much, add another 1/4 c. of almond flour and try again. Happy baking! Let us know how they turn out.
Yum! This sounds so amazing. I don’t know why I never paired pumpkin with chocolate before, but it sounds soooo good. I’m going to share with my friend who is doing the Keto diet right now.
It does seem like an odd pairing — pumpkin with chocolate — but it works! These keto pumpkin chocolate chip cookies are the bomb!
These look so yummy! I can’t wait to try them and can’t believe they’re keto!
Yeah, it’s amazing how many fantastic keto desserts you can find recipes for!
These look delicious! Bring on fall and pumpkin!
I feel the same way! Fall always gives me a hankering for pumpkin!
Yay! I’ve been doing Keto for a couple of weeks and have definitely been missing cookies! THANKS for this!!!
You’re welcome! These keto pumpkin chocolate chip cookies are the bomb — hope you like them!
Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins are my go to fall treat, they are so good! I can’t wait to try this healthier version!
Yum! I love them, too!
Thank you for the yummy recipe! It’s one of my favorite fall foods, and I love that this version is healthy!
I love figuring out keto versions of my favorite foods — like these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies!
OMG! This looks delicious!
Thanks, Ana! They are delicious!
Oh boy. These are going on my food list for fall, and also for Thanksgiving. They look delicious!
Thanks, Colleen! I’m all over these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies every fall, especially now that they’re keto-fied!