Keto Snowball Cookies
These keto snowball cookies are melt-in-your-mouth buttery, flakey cookies with small pieces of pecans and covered with sugar-free powdered sweetener. Bonus, they are gluten-free and only contain 1.2 grams of net carbs per serving!
These sugar-free snowball cookies are a must-add to your keto Christmas cookie recipe list this year! We love butter on keto, and these have a lot of butter, only 1.2 grams of net carbs per cookie, and such a lovely snowball look perfect for a Christmas cookie platter! Nobody will resist these healthy snowball cookies.
What are Snowball Cookies?
Before I share my keto-friendly snowball cookies with you, let me explain what a classic snowball cookie is. It always helps to know the story of the classic recipe before creating a keto version of it because you know what texture and taste you are trying to achieve.
Snowball cookies are also known as Russian Tea Cakes or Mexican Wedding Cakes. Both are originally made of a combination of all-purpose flour, powdered sugar, butter, and chopped nuts. They are rolled in powdered sugar before serving, which gives them a snowball look.
The Russian Tea Cakes or Pecan Snowballs always use finely chopped pecan nuts, while Mexican Tea Cakes can use other nuts like almonds, walnuts, or hazelnuts.
Here I am sharing a keto-friendly snowball cookie recipe that we could call Almond Snowball Cookies, as they use keto almond flour!
How to make keto snowball cookies?
These gluten-free almond flour snowball cookies are easy keto cookies to make with a few wholesome ingredients. But before you start, make sure that you follow the 7 easy steps below. Check out my Keto Snowball Cookie web story to see it in a different way!
Step 1: bringing butter to room temperature
Buttery snowball cookies use soft butter, not melted butter. So before you start making the cookies, bring the amount of butter called by the recipe out of the fridge for 30 minutes, until soft. I always recommend cutting the amount of butter into tiny cubes. It softens faster.
If you are wondering about taking butter out of the fridge, don’t you worry! It’s safe to leave butter at room temperature for up to 60 minutes!
Step 2: measuring ingredients
Meanwhile, with a measuring scoop, use the scoop-and-sweep method to precisely measure the ingredients. You will need:
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- Ultra-fine almond flour is the most common keto flour used in keto baking, don’t use an almond meal. Almond meal is grounded almonds with their skin on. It has a brownish color, and it will be too grainy and change the cookies’ color. Learn how to choose your keto flour.
- Powdered erythritol – not crystal, the powder erythritol looks like real powdered sugar, without the carbs, of course. It’s white and powdery. Also, note that not all keto sweeteners can be used in this recipe. In fact, powdered xylitol doesn’t work well in keto cookies. It keeps them ultra-soft and fragile. So choose powdered erythritol or allulose. Learn everything about Keto sweeteners.
- Soft butter – take the butter out of the fridge 30 minutes before using it in this recipe and beat with the powdered sugar until fluffy and light
- Vanilla extract
- Salt
- Pecans – finely chopped pecans are the particularly of Snowball Cookies. They are melt-in-your-mouth buttery cookies with tiny pieces of pecan. Great news, pecans are one of the lowest-carb keto nuts. So you can use them in your keto baking recipes.
Step 3: use your hands!
The best way to create a flakey, buttery keto snowball cookie dough is to rub the beaten fluffy butter with the dry ingredients. Bring all the ingredients into a medium bowl, except for the chopped pecans, and rub the butter into the almond flour.
You should obtain a buttery dough, not sticky, easy to roll into balls. Now stir in the chopped pecans and use a measuring tablespoon to scoop out the cookie dough and roll between your hands to form a round ball.
Place each cookie ball onto a baking sheet covered with parchment paper.
Step 4: refrigerate the cookie dough balls!
These snowball cookies are made with almond flour, which means they don’t have starchy wheat flour to hold their shape. The trick to prevent a cookie from flattening too much and to make it keep a semi-round shape is to refrigerate the cookie dough balls.
Refrigerate the prepared cookie dough balls onto the baking sheet or onto a plate if your cookie sheet can’t fit the refrigerate.
The cookie dough balls must be hard before going in the oven.
Step 5: Cooking at low temperature
Preheat oven to 325F (160C) to make sure the cookies bake slowly and again, keep their shape. Higher temperatures will also brown the cookies too fast.
Bake your sugar-free snowball cookies for 20 minutes or until lightly brown on the outside.
Step 6: Cooling down completely!
When you take the cookies out of the oven, they will still be soft on the outside. They slightly harden while cooling down. So be patient and let them cool down for 15 minutes on the baking tray, then transfer onto a cooling rack for another 3 hours of cooling.
Step 7: Rolling in powdered sweetener
Finally, when the cookies are cold, bring the powdered erythritol into a small bowl and roll each cookie into powdered erythritol to create the snowball effect.
How to store snowball cookies?
These cookies must be stored in the fridge in a sealed container or ziplock bags for up to 4 days. You can also make-ahead the snowball cookies and freeze. Thaw your keto cookies at room temperature on a plate.
Allergy swaps
These cookies tick almost all diet boxes. They are sugar-free paleo pecan snowball cookies and also egg-free keto cookies! But if you have other food allergies, I listed some options for you:
- Dairy- free – Unfortunately, you can’t use coconut oil for this recipe! The cookies will completely spread and flatten. A dairy-free butter is the best option here, but no any other dairy-free spread. They contain vegetable oils that are not keto-approved. Margarine spreads will also spread the cookies that won’t form snowballs. Look for dairy-free vegan butter like Naturli. They make dairy-free vegan ‘blocks’ without vegetable oil. That’s your best option for dairy-free cookies.
- Nut-free – you can make low carb snowball cookies nut-free. Replace the ultra-fine almond flour with the same amount of thin sesame flour. Replace the chopped pecan nuts with chopped seeds like sunflower seeds, or use hemp hearts.
Similar Recipes
If you’ve enjoyed these Snowball Cookies, you’ll love the following recipe:
Have you made these keto almond snowball cookies yet? Share a review or comment below, I love to hear your feedback on my keto recipes!
XOXO Carine
Recipe Card
Keto Snowball Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup Unsalted Butter – soften, not melted equivalent 1 US stick
- ⅓ cup Powdered Erythritol not crystal, not xylitol
- 1 ⅔ cup Almond flour – measure precisely, spoon and sweep method
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla
- ½ cup finely chopped pecans
For rolling the cookies
- ½ cup Powdered Erythritol
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F (160°C).
- Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
- In another large bowl, beat the soft butter with powdered sweetener until light and fluffy – takes about 1-2 minutes.
- With a kitchen spatula, stir in almond flour, salt, vanilla extract and chopped pecans. You may have to use your hands to squeeze the ingredients together to incorporate well. If dough is too wet add more almond flour 1 tablespoon at a time.
- Roll one tablespoon of dough between your hands to form a cookie ball.
- Place each ball 1 inch apart onto the prepared cookie sheet – you will form 12 cookie balls.
- Place the cookie sheet with the 12 cookie dough balls in the fridge for 30 minutes. This is compulsory, or the cookies will spread too much!
- Bake for 18-22 minutes or until slightly golden brown on the outside. The cookies will slightly expand and flatten.
- Remove from the oven, cool down for 10 minutes on the cookie sheet then transfer to a cooling rack for another 15 minutes or until completely cool.
- Meanwhile, prepare a small bowl with the extra powdered erythritol.
- Roll the lukewarm cookie balls into the powdered erythritol and return to the cooling rack until they reach room temperature.
- Store for up to 1 week in a sealed cookie jar at room temperature.
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Disclaimer
The recipes, instructions, and articles on this website should not be taken or used as medical advice. You must consult with your doctor before starting on a keto or low-carb diet. The nutritional data provided on Sweetashoney is to be used as indicative only. The nutrition data is calculated using WP Recipe Maker. Net Carbs is calculated by removing the fiber and some sweeteners from the total Carbohydrates. As an example, a recipe with 10 grams of Carbs per 100 grams that contains 3 grams of erythritol and 5 grams of fiber will have a net carbs content of 2 grams. Some sweeteners are excluded because they are not metabolized. You should always calculate the nutritional data yourself instead of relying on Sweetashoney's data. Sweetashoney and its recipes and articles are not intended to cure, prevent, diagnose, or treat any disease. Sweetashoney cannot be liable for adverse reactions or any other outcome resulting from the use of recipes or advice found on the Website.
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I have a question about the amount of butter in the metric system. It says to use 4 tablespoons which is equivalent to one whole stick of butter in the US. But one stick of butter in the US has 8 tablespoons, not 4. So should I use 4 or 8 tablespoons of butter?
Sorry for the error in this metric system. You need 1/2 cup of butter so 8 tablespoons of butter. I hope it helps. Enjoy the cookies
I think the nutrition facts are off… 12 cookies is one serving?
What brand of powdered sugar do you use? I use the Wholesome allulose brand. I also want to know which brand of dairy free butter ?? I have been using Earth balance for several years. Not sure it would work here. I need a completely dairy free butter. Thank you!!
I didn’t try the recipe with dairy-free butter and I am not sure it will work because vegan butter tend to melt faster and it will totally spread the cookies. I am using Lakanto powdered sweetener.
The nutrition panel is for one cookie, the recipe makes 12 cookies. Enjoy, XOXO Carine