As October rolls around, pumpkin spice cravings kick into high gear. These keto pumpkin cookies, crafted with coconut flour, offer a delightful way to indulge in those fabulous fall flavors without derailing your low-carb lifestyle. These cookies are soft, moist, and chewy, delivering the classic pumpkin dessert flavor we all love. With hints of cinnamon, vanilla, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice, they're a true celebration of the season.
Why You'll Love These Keto Pumpkin Cookies
- Fabulous fall flavors: The cookies have that classic pumpkin dessert flavor we all love.
- Soft texture: The crumb is soft and moist, almost like a cake.
- Easy recipe: The recipe is suitable even for beginner bakers.
- Low in carbs: One cookie contains only 0.9g net carbs.
- Naturally gluten-free: Coconut flour is grain free and naturally gluten free.
Key Ingredients and Substitutions
- Coconut Flour: If possible, measure your coconut flour with a scale instead of cups for more precision.
- Pumpkin Puree: Use canned unsweetened pumpkin puree, not a ready-made pumpkin pie mix. Homemade pumpkin puree works, too.
- Sweetener: A granulated golden monk fruit sweetener is a great choice. White granulated erythritol, xylitol, or allulose would also work well. For the frosting, the sweetener must be powdered (and white) to avoid a grainy texture.
- Butter: Should be very soft, for both the cookie dough and the frosting. Coconut oil can be used as a dairy-free replacement in the cookie dough.
- Eggs: Large, room-temperature eggs are recommended for a better rise.
- Pumpkin Spice Mix: This is a mix of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves.
- Vanilla Extract: Check that it is sugar free.
- Baking Powder: Test for freshness by putting some in water.
- Cream Cheese: For the frosting. Dairy-free cream cheese can be used as a substitute.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Cookie Dough
- Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F (electric) or 160C / 320F (fan assisted) and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Combine all ingredients for the cookie dough in a bowl with a fork. Option to also add a pinch of salt. Let the cookie dough sit for a few minutes so the coconut flour can absorb the moisture.
- Form a large ball and cut into 8 slices.
- Cut each slice in half and roll 2 small balls. Place the dough balls on a cookie sheet.
- Use a dessert spoon to flatten into a cookie shape and to make hollows into the tops.
- Bake for 12 minutes. The cookies will be very soft and fragile when fresh out of the oven, but firm up as they cool down.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- For the frosting, blend very soft butter, cream cheese, powdered sweetener and vanilla extract until well-combined using an electric mixer.
- Pipe or spoon onto the fully cooled cookies.
Tips for Perfect Keto Pumpkin Cookies
- Patience! These pumpkin cookies are delicate and almost like pumpkin cheesecake cookies, as they are soft in texture. They need to be cooled before handling.
- Shape them! The cookies will remain the same shape as they were going into the oven, so choose your lumps accordingly - I make discs out of the dough for cookie shapes. Use a dessert spoon to flatten into a cookie shape and to make hollows into the tops.
- Don't over-bake. The cookies will be very soft and fragile when fresh out of the oven, but firm up as they cool down. Bake until golden.
- Cold cream cheese. My cream cheese was fridge cold, that's why the frosting was ready to use straight away.
- When we cook our cookies we carefully move the parchment paper from the baking sheet onto a wire rack, rather than picking up a cookie. They will break if handled when warm.
- The butter and cream cheese need to be at room temperature before mixing. The softer they are, the smoother the cookie batter will be.
Recipe Variations
- Almond flour pumpkin cookies: Use 1 cup or 100 grams of almond flour and only one egg. (Note I have not tried this yet myself).
- Jazz up the frosting: Add 1 tablespoon pumpkin puree for a proper pumpkin frosting!
- Sugar free icing: Can be used instead of the frosting. Simply use the icing I developed for my vanilla coconut flour cake.
- Dairy free: Replace the butter with coconut oil in the cookie dough. Use dairy free cream cheese and dairy free butter in the frosting.
- Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies: Add a handful sugar free chocolate chips to the cookie dough and omit the frosting.
- Pumpkin balls: Stick to the same oven time and roll in powdered sweetener while warm or add the sugar free icing mentioned in the recipe variations.
- Add on flavor: Make keto pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.
Storage Instructions
- At room temperature: Unfrosted cookies can be stored in an airtight cookie jar for up to 1 week.
- In the refrigerator: Store the cookies in the fridge in an airtight container and they should last up to 5 days. Once they are frosted, low carb pumpkin cookies should be stored in the fridge for up to 4 days. When kept in the fridge overnight they will firm up slightly.
- In the freezer: Freeze the cookies without frosting for up to 3 months. Defrost, then add the frosting straight before serving.
Nutritional Information
If you make 10 cookies out of this recipe, each cookie contains 167 calories, 7 grams of total carbohydrate, 8 grams of fiber and 4 grams of protein. Net carbs: 0.9g net carbs per cookie. Portion size: Coconut flour is filling. I think you'd be very satisfied with 2 of these cookies if you're serving them as a dessert.
Is Pumpkin Keto-Friendly?
Yes, pumpkin is a keto friendly vegetable. 100 grams of pumpkin contain just 7 grams of carbohydrates.
Where to Buy Pumpkin Puree in the UK
You can get canned pumpkin via Ocado, at Tesco and Waitrose as well as on Amazon. Greengrocers and health food stores stock it from mid October.
Can I bake these cookies?
I don’t recommend baking these cookies from this specific dough, as it doesn’t have sufficient liquid to yield soft and chewy cookies.
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