This recipe for Soft Keto Sugar Cookies with Vanilla Frosting yields rich, buttery cookies that are crispy outside and soft and chewy inside. They're perfect topped with silky smooth sugar-free vanilla buttercream. And each frosted cookie only has 2g net carbs!
I searched for the best keto sugar cookies for a very long time. And in the process I tried more recipes than I care to admit!
Keto baking can be quite finicky, and nothing yielded the result I was looking for. Finally I came up with this recipe for Keto Soft Sugar Cookies with Vanilla Frosting that's as close to regular sugar cookies as I can get it!
These cookies are soft and chewy, aromatic with vanilla, and laced with a touch of almond. The buttercream is silky smooth, not too sweet, and rich with healthy fats.
The best part is, you can have fun decorating these cookies for each season!
Here I went with pastel nonpareils for a spring theme. You can decorate these cookies for Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, or any other celebration you can think of.
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The Best Keto Soft and Chewy Sugar Cookies Recipe with Sugar Free Vanilla Frosting
The texture of these cookies is soft and chewy with a slightly crisp bottom. They are surprisingly very similar to regular cookies!
They’re laced with vanilla and a touch of almond extract. I also add sour cream because that’s my mom’s secret ingredient in her regular cutout cookie recipe to give the cookies a soft, tender crumb.
Pro Tip: Don’t be tempted to omit the almond extract here because it helps mute the flavor of the mozzarella.
Note that the mozzarella is necessary here to achieve the right soft, chewy texture. These Keto Soft Sugar Cookies don't taste overly cheesy. However, the flavor of cheese is present, similar to a cheese Danish flavor, which intensifies over time.
Ingredients for Soft Keto Sugar Cookies
- Beef gelatin
- Boiling water
- Unsalted butter
- Full-fat sour cream
- Swerve Confectioners
- Egg
- Vanilla extract
- Almond extract
- Stevia glycerite
- Almond flour
- Coconut flour
- Baking powder
- Part-skim shredded mozzarella cheese
Ingredients for Sugar Free Vanilla Frosting
- Heavy whipping cream
- Egg yolks
- Swerve Confectioners
- Stevia glycerite
- Salt
- Unsalted butter
- Vanilla extract
How to Make Soft and Chewy Keto Sugar Cookies
- Mix together the beef gelatin and boiling water in a small bowl and stir to dissolve.
- Cream together the butter, sour cream, Swerve Confectioners, egg, vanilla extract, almond extract, and stevia glycerite in a large bowl and set aside. Beat in the dissolved gelatin.
- Whisk together the dry ingredients (almond flour, coconut flour, and baking powder) in a medium bowl.
- Melt the mozzarella cheese in a microwave (in 30 second increments) or in a double boiler.
- Add the almond flour and mozzarella cheese to the butter mixture and stir vigorously to combine. It might be helpful to knead the dough a bit with oiled hands to help it come together.
- Form the dough into a ball, flatten it slightly into a disk, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate until chilled. This takes about 2 hours in the fridge or 20 minutes in the freezer.
- Preheat the oven to 350F and line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper or silpat liners. Roll the cookie dough out between 2 pieces of parchment paper to a circle about ¼-inch thick. Use a cookie cutter in any shape you like to stamp out the dough into cookies, and then gather the scraps, re-roll, and repeat until the dough is all used. I used a 3-inch circle cookie cutter and got 12 cookies.
- Arrange the cookies on the prepared baking sheets and bake until golden on the bottom, about 12 to 15 minutes, rotating the trays once halfway through. Cool completely before frosting.
How to Store Fathead Sugar Cookies
Store Soft Keto Sugar Cookies wrapped in the fridge for up to 1 week. I like to arrange them on a flat tray and not stack them to keep the frosting looking nice. Let them sit at room temperature for 10 minutes before serving.
Keto Fathead Sugar Cookies
I used the idea behind fathead dough to make my Soft Keto Sugar Cookies: using melted mozzarella in the cookie dough!
What is Fathead Dough?
In the keto world, fathead dough is extremely well known. It’s usually used to make pizza! It’s basically just part-skim shredded mozzarella cheese that’s melted and combined with a keto-friendly flour, such as almond flour or coconut flour.
Different recipes add different flavors. For example, if the dough is for pizza, the recipe might add dried Italian herbs. To make fathead dough into these Keto Soft Sugar Cookies, I add vanilla extract, almond extract, and sweetener.
As for the history behind fathead dough, Tom Naughton’s oldest brother’s oldest son created it, and named it after his Fat Head movie.
Tips for Making Keto Chewy Sugar Cookies
These cookies are soft and chewy, thanks to a few keto baking tips:
- The chewy factor. Beef gelatin lends a slightly chewy factor to these cookies, and don’t worry, you can’t taste it! If you’re looking for a vegetarian substitute for beef gelatin, you may want to try agar agar (if you try it, please let me know how it goes in the comments below!).
- Keep them moist. Sour cream helps keep these cookies moist and chewy.
- We all like a soft cookie, right? Part-skim shredded mozzarella melted and combined into the dough is what really gives these cookies their soft texture! Make sure you buy this kind of mozzarella (part-skim, pre-shredded) because the cheese that you shred yourself will have too much moisture for this recipe.
Keto Diet FAQs
Can I Eat a Cookie on Keto?
There are a lot of recipes for keto cookies out there! Scroll down because I link to a few of my favorites in this post. You can also do a quick Google search for “keto cookie recipes”.
On the other hand, if the real question is whether you can eat a regular cookie on the keto diet, the answer to that is a little different.
The point of a ketogenic (i.e., low carb high fat) diet is to maintain a state of nutritional ketosis so our bodies run on fat instead of on carbs. We can achieve that by determining our macronutrient needs (macro calculators are helpful for this!).
Macronutrients are calories, protein, fat, and carbs. Check the macronutrients for the cookie you want to eat, and see if you can fit it into your macros for the day; if so, go ahead and eat it!
How Can I Eat What I Want on Keto?
I don’t consider any foods to be “not keto”. Personally, I try to focus on nutrient-dense real-foods that are naturally high in fat and low in carbs. These are things such as grass-fed dairy, eggs, avocados, healthy fats (like olive oil, avocado oil, grass-fed ghee, etc.), grass-fed beef, free-range chicken, and non-starchy vegetables (for example, leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables).
And yes, there are foods I try to avoid, but in the end it’s about whether you can fit a food into your daily macronutrient requirements. This is where portion size becomes extremely important.
What Does a Sample Day of Keto Eating Look Like?
For example:
- Breakfast: Bulletproof coffee
- Lunch: 2 roasted chicken thighs with ½ cup garlic-sauteed spinach
- Dinner: Bunless cheeseburger (just meat and cheese) topped with ½ of an avocado
Your carb intake for the day would be pretty low, right? (Remember that net carbs = total carbs – fiber – sugar alcohols.)
Depending on what your macronutrient requirements are, at the end of a day of eating like that, you will probably have a few carbs to play around with. Meaning, go ahead and have that spoonful of peanut butter (measure it!), half a chocolate chip cookie, small serving of ice cream (weight it!), or whatever “non-keto” food it is that you want to have that will fit into your daily macronutrients.
How Do I Not Get Discouraged on Keto?
Don't tell yourself that foods are "bad".
I’ve noticed that the moment a certain food becomes “off limits”, “not allowed”, “bad”, or “not keto” is the moment it’s all I can think about.
Instead of adopting this mentality, I choose to limit non-nutritious high-carb foods and focus on eating nutrient-rich, naturally low-carb high-fat foods. I make it my choice to want to nourish myself.
However, if I’m craving a particular food (for example, lasagna), I will either find a way to make lasagna keto, or I will find a way to fit a small portion of regular lasagna into my meal plan for that day (by lowering my carb intake at other meals).
My low carb biscuit recipe has been a lifesaver for me and is a regular staple in my kitchen!
Can You Cheat on Keto?
The idea of cheating on a diet is very interesting, and very common! There are three points I want to bring up about cheating on keto:
- Nutritional ketosis has the effect of stabilizing your blood sugar so your cravings will be reduced. As a result, you may not be tempted to cheat!
- Even if you are tempted to cheat, or if you’re craving a carb-heavy food, it’s fairly easy to find a keto version of it or to adjust your daily eating to fit in a small portion of it.
- If by cheating you mean eating whatever you want without regard for your macronutrient requirements so that you kick your body out of ketosis, I don’t recommend this. The reason is, once you’re out of ketosis your body will again have to burn through the glucose in your bloodstream as well as your glycogen stores before you get back into a state of nutritional ketosis. And yes, this takes a few days and you may experience the “keto flu” again! Ugh, lol.
More Delicious Low Carb and Keto Cookies to Make
- Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Small Batch Chewy Molasses Ginger Cookies
- Banana Nut Breakfast Cookies
- Almond Butter Chocolate “Kiss” Cookies
Soft Keto Sugar Cookies with Sugar Free Vanilla Frosting
Ingredients
Cookies:
- ¼ teaspoon beef gelatin
- 1 teaspoon boiling water
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
- ¼ cup full-fat sour cream
- ¼ cup Swerve Confectioners
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon pure almond extract
- ¼ teaspoon stevia glycerite
- 1 cup almond flour
- 4 teaspoons coconut flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 4 oz part-skim shredded mozzarella cheese
Frosting:
- ⅓ cup heavy whipping cream
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1 ½ tablespoons Swerve Confectioners
- ⅛ teaspoon stevia glycerite
- 1 pinch salt
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
Cookies:
- Mix together the beef gelatin and boiling water in a small bowl and stir to dissolve; set aside.
- Cream together the butter, sour cream, Swerve Confectioners, egg, vanilla extract, almond extract, and stevia glycerite in a large bowl and set aside. Beat in the dissolved gelatin.
- Whisk together the almond flour, coconut flour, and baking powder in a medium bowl.
- Melt the mozzarella cheese in a microwave (in 30 second increments) or in a double boiler.
- Add the almond flour and mozzarella cheese to the butter mixture and stir vigorously to combine. It might be helpful to knead the dough a bit with oiled hands to help it come together.
- Form the dough into a ball, flatten it slightly into a disk, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate until chilled. This takes about 2 hours in the fridge or 20 minutes in the freezer.
- Preheat the oven to 350F and line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper or silpat liners. Roll the cookie dough out between 2 pieces of parchment paper to a circle about ¼-inch thick. Use a cookie cutter in any shape you like to stamp out the dough into cookies, and then gather the scraps, re-roll, and repeat until the dough is all used. I used a 3-inch circle cookie cutter and got 12 cookies.
- Arrange the cookies on the prepared baking sheets and bake until golden on the bottom, about 12 to 15 minutes, rotating the trays once halfway through. Cool completely before frosting.
Frosting:
- Add the cream, egg yolks, Swerve Confectioners, stevia glycerite, and salt to a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook until the mixture is thickened, about 3 minutes, whisking constantly. Cool to room temperature and then chill.
- Use a handheld electric mixer to cream the butter and vanilla together in a large bowl. Beat in the chilled cream mixture until light and fluffy.
- Frost the cookies; serve.
Helpful Tips
- Net Carbs: 2g net carbs per frosted cookie
- Store these cookies wrapped in the fridge for up to 1 week. I like to arrange them on a flat tray and not stack them to keep the frosting looking nice. Let them sit at room temperature for 10 minutes before serving.
- In the cookies, instead of Swerve Confectioners, you can use ⅓ cup powdered monk fruit/allulose sweetener. And instead of stevia glycerite, you can use ½ teaspoon liquid stevia extract.
- In the frosting, instead of Swerve Confectioners, you can use 2 tablespoons powdered monk fruit/allulose sweetener. And instead of stevia glycerite, you can use ¼ teaspoon liquid stevia extract.
Nutrition
This post was first published on Healthy Sweet Eats on April 11, 2019. It was updated with more information on October 7, 2021.
Clean Keto Lifestyle
Thank you for sharing this, you make it easier for others. Love this idea! Looks so delicious and I can’t wait to try it! It tastes just like traditional sugar cookies. All the keto recipes are so delicious as well as healthy.
Cindy
Do the cookies have to be refrigerated once frosted?
faith
Cindy, I left these cookies in an airtight container at room temperature the first day, and then I refrigerated them after that. The frosting stiffens in the fridge, so I recommend letting the cookies sit at room temperature for about 10 to 15 minutes before serving once they've been refrigerated.
Alisha Ross
This so AMAZING! This is a dish that I would totally make for myself and probably keep for myself. My grandmother used to make something similar when I was a little girl.