Wait, I’m sorry, did you want the recipe for these Keto Chocolate Chip Cookies? You sure did! Man you guys freaked out for this recipe and I love it! You guys are so my people. Sorry it took me forever to get these señioritas up on the blog. What can I say? I was busy. Shrugs. We finally finished up the house and I have this fancy new desk space to work from and it’s everything. It’s crazy how much more productive you can be when you have a great space.
So lets talk Keto and cookies for s second mmmkay?
I firmly believe that everyone should have at least one outfit that they feel absolutely amazing in, and a recipe for a fantastic batch of chocolate chip cookies. Chocolate chip cookies are the Little Black Dress of the culinary world.
If you’re doing Keto or Low-Carb and craving cookies, this is your recipe. According to my calculations these have 1g net carbs per cookie. I wouldn’t file this under “Things I’m Proud Of”, but I did eat 6 of these cookies in one day and still had a very dark ketosis test strip. I did Keto for 100 days at the beginning of the year as an experiment to see what all the fuss was about. My body has always done really well with lower-carb diets, which sucks because I sure love me some carbs. I did Atkins like 100 years ago and loved it, but eventually got bored and went back to darkness my old friend, ie. Carbs.
So what’s Keto you may ask? Keto is short for Ketosis or the process of your body burning fat for fuel instead of carbohydrates. Keto is a diet of very low carbohydrates (5%-10% of your daily macros), moderate protein, and high fat. I find for me, my sweet spot on Keto was about 30g-35g of carbs a day. I could still be in Ketosis and didn’t feel like I was low on energy or anything. Days where I had 20g or fewer, I was definitely dragging and exercise was a little challenging.
Since I normally eat relatively low carb, about 75-100g a day (what feels best for my body), I didn’t get any sort of Keto Flu when I started. Like at all. So that was awesome. I would say the only thing I really noticed while transitioning was just that exercise seemed harder than usual. Like it took more effort and I was tired quicker. That’s about it.
I think the thing I ended up liking the most about Keto was how full I stayed all day. I felt like I was never hungry and when I was hungry, I knew it was actual body hunger, not stress or emotional hunger. I think that’s a really good thing to learn about your body. Months later now, because of Keto, I’ve learned to identify what my body hunger feels like (my body telling me it needs food) vs. emotional eating (eating because I’m bored, or happy, or stressed). That is something I think is really important for everyone to learn to recognize. Usually when I’m eating because I’m bored, there is something else I could be doing to alleviate that symptom besides stuffing my face. As much as I love it, my pants don’t.
One side effect that I actually didn’t like with Keto was the sleep situation. Folks claim that their sleep improves on Keto. Mine didn’t. I was literally unable to sleep in and I’d constantly wake up before my alarm clock went off. I think this is due to the fact that I just had much more energy on Keto. If you know anything about me at all though, you know that I LOVE sleep, like probably as much as I love chocolate and that’s really saying something.
I don’t want to wake up early! Ever! Haha. So for me that was not ideal although for some of you I’m sure it will be. I love to sleep in on the weekends. So much so in fact, that it’s one of the main reasons I don’t have kids. I’m a night owl by nature. If I could create my ideal schedule, like if work and normal adult people stuff didn’t get in the way, it would be 2am-10am. Meaning I would go to sleep at 2am and wake up at 10am. I do my best and most clear thinking at night and it’s the only time of day that I feel actually awake, acute, insightful, and ready to take on the day. Which is kind of ironic since the day is over.
I know this about myself because every year during the Holidays, I take 2-3 weeks off for Christmas and this is the schedule my body naturally adapts to when I don’t have an alarm set. It’s what feels most natural to me and I can thrive in a state where I never feel tired or like I’m running on empty. Usually getting out of bed every morning feels like pure absolute torture to me on the daily. It has since I was a little kid and would have to go to school. Don’t even get me started on the Saturday morning screaming matches I’d have with my poor Mom who had to wake me up for soccer games. Sorry Mom. She says I love to sleep so much because I was born a month late. “You just didn’t want to get up.”
But I digress…with Keto I would just wake up and be up up. So actually maybe we should file that under ‘A Good Thing’. I started to miss those sleepy mornings though where you wake up, but sleep still has it’s grasp on you like a tender hug, not wanting to let you out of it’s arms. So you pull the blankets up a little tighter and then roll over on to your other side and quickly slip under again. I love that feeling. Keto doesn’t. It’s like a drill Sargent snapping you awake at dawn to go run laps.
So what happened after the 100 days? Am I still doing Keto? Simply put, No. Keto is not something that I would want to permanently maintain as a lifestyle. While I absolutely loved all the rich and delicious food I got to eat on Keto, (hello bacon-wrapped jalepeño cream cheese stuffed chicken, I’m talking to you) I really missed my favorite carbs (now I’m talking to you gluten-free chocolate chip pancakes!) and began to feel deprived. For me I have to find a balance with my diet. If I deprive myself of something for too long, I get binge tendencies. Meaning if I don’t allow myself a certain type of food whether it be sweets, carbs, alcohol, etc. the second I do allow it into my life again, I tend to binge on it.
I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection on this topic lately, thinking about my diet as a whole, what works for me, what doesn’t. I also read this good book that really opened my eyes to some things, a book that I HIGHLY recommend. It’s called The Diet Fix: Why Diets Fail and How to Make Yours Work by Dr. Yoni Freedhoff. While I realize that this sounds like a super cheesy diet book from 1986, I promise you, it’s anything but that.
It’s basically a book about simple tips to maintain a healthy lifestyle and lose weight if that’s your goal. I mean, I have a few Lbs. I definitely wouldn’t mind saying goodbye to, ya feel me? I found this book to be full of really insightful suggestions that made so much sense I was like, “Why have I never thought of that before.” It also gets you in a different mindset about diets in general, which I think is something most of us will really benefit from. This book helped me realize that one of my big diet fails is that I restrict myself too much and then end up eating a ton of whatever that food is when I finally do let myself have it (binging tendencies). So my new mantra is “No Food is Off Limits”. I choose to stay away from gluten because it causes a ruckus if I eat it. I will eat it on occasion if it’s really worth it, but other than that I stay away from it by choice.
So let’s get back to cookies shall we! Twist my arm…so these Keto Chocolate Chip Cookies are perfection. They taste just like the real deal. I think I tested this recipe 3 times to get it just right. The first batch was…terrible, but by batch 3 we were good to go. I get my Swerve and Lily’s chocolate from Sprouts, but you can probably find them at any Whole Foods or local health food store. If not there is always the internet! What did we do without the internet? No seriously, what did we do?
Are you doing Keto right now? Or just looking for your one fabulous chocolate chip cookie recipe to have on hand?
- 1 cup (8 ounces/227 g) salted butter, browned
- 2 cups (185 g) sifted fine-ground blanched almond flour
- 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup ( 165 g) Swerve brand granulated erythritol
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup (115 g) Lily’s Dark Chocolate Baking Chips
- 1/2 bar (2 ounces/ 56 g) Lily’s Dark Chocolate Baking Bar, chopped
- Brown the butter by putting the butter in a medium-sized heavy-bottomed saucepan and cook over medium-low heat. Stir intermittently using a rubber spatula. As the butter melts it will start to bubble and foam. As the butter continues to cook, the color will turn from lemon yellow to amber and go from a loud bubble to quiet simmer. When the butter is ready, brown specks will have formed at the bottom of the pan and some of the specks will start to rise in the foam. The butter will also have a very pleasant nutty aroma. Remove the pan from the heat and let cool for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the pan is cool to the touch. Another option is placing the pan in the freezer for 10 minutes to speed up the cooling process.
- While waiting for the butter to cool, add the almond flour, xanthan gum, baking soda, and salt to a mixing bowl. Stir together using a fork until well combined; set aside.
- Once the butter has cooled, add the Swerve to a large mixing bowl or the mixing bowl of a stand mixer, add the butter and vanilla and mix together on medium-low speed using a hand or stand mixer until combined. Add each egg one at a time, mixing on medium-low speed after each, for about 15-30 seconds or until combined. Then add the almond flour mixture and mix again until combined. Stir in the chopped chocolate and chocolate chips by hand using a rubber spatula.
- Place the bowl with the cookie dough in the freezer for 15 min. to firm up the dough. While waiting for the cookie dough to firm, adjust oven rack to the middle position and preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or nonstick baking mats; set aside.
- Once the dough is chilled use a small cookie scoop to transfer the dough evenly onto the prepared baking sheets, 12 cookies per sheet. To get visually appealing cookies, I find it helps to smooth the dough around the edges with my fingertips.
- Bake each sheet separately for 10-12 min. or until the edges and bottoms have browned. Slide the parchment paper or non-stick baking mat with the cookies off the baking tray and on to the counter to let cool. The cookies will have a very soft and unsolidified consistency. Don’t panic, you did nothing wrong, this is due to the Swerve. The cookies will harden as they cool and become the consistency of traditional cookies. Store any remaining cookies in a covered container for up to 3 days or freeze up to one month.
- For a dairy-free option, sub melted ghee for browned butter. I recommend Tin Star Foods Brown Butter Ghee.
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