Speculaas cookies are a traditional biscuit normally eaten before St Nicholas’ day in Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany. But they’re enjoyable all year round. Outside of Europe, these delicious treats are normally found served on aeroplanes as an inflight snack.
Now you can enjoy them as part of the keto diet, with my keto-friendly recipe that uses almond flour and erythritol or xylitol.
The spices
I chose to spice my speculaas with ginger, cinnamon, cardamom and nutmeg. If you dislike ginger, you can leave it out without losing too much of the spiced flavour.
The sweetener
Erythritol or Xylitol both work well for these biscuits. You may wish to use more or less of the sweetener depending on you tastebuds (and some may even want to leave it out completely). If you have a dog, never use xylitol as it is toxic to them.
The dough
If you use the ingredient quantities in the recipe you will most likely get a sticky dough. Which is fine, but can be awkward to work with. Adding more almond flour can make this easier to work with but I found it made the biscuits taste a bit dryer. If you plan on using cookie cutters, add more almond flour.
Gluten Free Keto Speculaas Cookies
- Prep Time15 min
- Cook Time20 min
- Total Time35 min
- Ready in30 minutes
- Yield15
- Energy70 cal
- Almond flour 150g
- 50g butter
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon of ground cardamom
Line a baking tray with parchment/baking paper. Pre-heat an oven to gas mark 5/375f/191c
Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
Melt the butter and mix into the dry ingredient mix until well combined.
Whisk in the egg until well combined.
At this stage the dough may be quite sticky, if you want a firmer dough to use with cookie cutters, I recommend adding more almond flour.
You will now need to shape the dough. Lay a sheet of clingfilm on the worktop, and lightly oil it. Wet your hands, then transfer the mix to the clingfilm, and squish out into a rectangle shape about 1cm high. If your dough is stickier, you’ll need to rewet your hands a few times while doing this.
Once laid out, cut the dough into shapes. Then transfer to the baking paper. You may have to slide a knife under the cutout cookies to transfer it.
If you have issues cutting the dough out, you can also shape it using your hands. Wet your hands and squish some of the dough between them to make it flat. Then transfer to the baking paper.
Bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Once baked they will be soft. Leave to cool until hardened and then enjoy with a cup of coffee.
- 15 servings per container
- Amount per serving
- Calories70
- % Daily Value*
- Total Fat6.2 g7.95%
- Saturated Fat2.1 g10.5%
- Cholesterol18 mg6%
- Sodium145 mg6.3%
- Total Carbohydrate1.9 g0.69%
- Dietary Fiber0.9 g3.21%
- Total Sugars0.1 g
- Protein1.9 g3.8%
- Vitamin D (Cholecalciferol)3 IU0.38%
- Calcium6 mg0.46%
- Iron0 mg0%
- Potassium8 mg0.17%
- * The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a serving of food contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
Made these and omg! They were amazing.
Made a few batches of these now, I put em in the kids lunch boxes. They think they’re normal ones lol