Deliciously tender almond flour cookie cups filled with low carb lemon pastry cream. A divine keto Easter treat! This post is sponsored by Bob’s Red Mill.
My kids love Easter almost as much as they love Christmas and for the life of me I can’t figure out why. We don’t really go to any services and I keep a pretty tight lid on the Easter candy. There is some but not a lot and we fill the plastic eggs with other fun things instead. And while I might let them have a few chocolate eggs, I don’t let Peeps anywhere near my house (ugh!). I’m honestly not wild about the day myself. Perhaps it’s the required filling and hiding of aforementioned plastic eggs. And you never know what the weather will be like at that time of year. Could be beautiful, in which I will need to hide them outside and be on tenterhooks, hoping my kids don’t trample the flower beds. But if it has to be inside, I then watch in horror as they tear the house apart. They love the thrill of the chase, I guess. Me, I’m over it.
What I do love is coming up with recipes for Easter dinner or Easter Brunch. And always always Easter dessert. Because that’s what every celebration revolves around for me. Dessert. Not even eating it so much, which of course I enjoy, but the actual making and creation of it. The prepping, the baking, the presentation. The whole she-bang. And then, you know, the eating part doesn’t suck.
I was casting around for what I wanted to make this year and I kept seeing these pretty little cookie cups on Instagram, filled with cheesecake or whipped cream or pastry cream. Who doesn’t love sugar cookies, after all? I love them, my kids love them, and we love them all the more when they aren’t actually made with sugar. Can we even call them sugar cookies? Is that allowed? Well, they are sugar c00kie-esque so I am going with it. And since lemon is so timely for Spring and Easter recipes, I wanted lemon sugar cookie cups filled with a rich lemon pastry cream.
My low carb, sugar-free sugar cookies wouldn’t be what they are without Bob’s Red Mill low carb flours. It still sometimes astonishes me that almond flour and coconut flour can be made to look and taste like regular flour. Sure, it takes some ingenuity and I flatter myself that I have some of that. But really, it is remarkable. Kind of makes you think that wheat became the go-to flour for baking purely by historical accident. If we’d realized earlier that grinding up nuts and coconut could lead to just as tasty treats, maybe we’d all be a lot healthier. And gluten-free to boot!
Cook’s Notes: I tried the cookie cups both with and without liners in the muffin tins. I like the look of the smooth sides better, but the ones in the parchment liners released much more easily.
Lemon Sugar Cookie Cups
Ingredients
Cookie Cups:
- 2 cups almond flour
- 2 tablespoon coconut flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 6 tablespoon butter softened
- ½ cup Swerve Sweetener
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Lemon Pastry Cream:
- 1 cup whipping cream
- 3 egg yolks
- 6 tablespoon confectioner’s Swerve Sweetener
- pinch salt
- 2 tablespoon butter cut into two pieces
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 2 teaspoon lemon zest
- ½ teaspoon lemon extract
- ¼ teaspoon xanthan gum
Instructions
Cookie Cups:
- Preheat the oven to 325F and grease a 12 cavity muffin pan very well (or line with parchment or silicone liners).
- In a large bowl, whisk together the almond flour, coconut flour, baking powder, and salt.
- In another large bowl, beat the butter with the sweetener until well combined. Beat in the egg, lemon zest, and vanilla extract, then beat in the almond flour mixture until the dough comes together.
- Roll the dough into 12 even balls and place in the prepared muffin pan. Press evenly into the bottom and up the sides of the muffin cups.
- Bake 20 to 25 minutes, or until the cups are puffed and the edges are just golden brown (they won't be completely firm to the touch yet but they shouldn't be mushy either!).
- Remove from the oven and re-shape the cookie cavities with the end of a wooden spoon. Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then gently loose with a knife and transfer to a baking rack (if you baked them in parchment or silicone liners, they will be easy to remove).
Lemon Pastry Cream:
- Bring whipping cream to a simmer in a medium saucepan over medium heat. In a medium bowl, whisk egg yolks with sweetener and salt.
- Slowly whisk about half of the hot cream into the yolks to temper, then return the yolk/cream mixture back to the saucepan and cook until thickened, 4 to 5 minutes more, whisking constantly. Watch it carefully and do not let it curdle.
- Remove from heat and whisk in butter, lemon juice, lemon zest, and lemon extract. Sprinkle the surface with xanthan gum and whisk vigorously to combine. Spoon into the cups and refrigerate until set, about 2 hours.
- Garnish with fresh berries and lemon slices.
Notes
Total fat: 24.68g
Calories from fat: 222
Cholesterol: 93mg
Carbohydrate: 5.56g
Total dietary fiber: 2.49g
Protein: 5.64g
Many thanks to Bob’s Red Mill for partnering with me to bring you this recipe.
More great low carb keto Easter Recipes:
Rosemary Garlic Grilled Leg of Lamb
Sarah says
These were lovely! I didn’t have any berries to put on top but they were eaten up by even my non low carb friends and enjoyed. Best sugar cookie recipe I’ve tasted. I didn’t quite get the lemon cream cooked down enough for fear of curdling it.
Heidi Shaw says
Lemon? Yes please! Low carb lemon treats? O My Freaking Goodness.
I have become obsessed with Carolyn’s recipes over the last few months. She consistently good the Bullseye for flavor, beauty and ease of preparation. So so much yes to these!!
Katy says
Just wanted to share: I did a hybrid of this recipe (the cookie base) with the frosting from https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/chocolate-cookie-pizza-and-world-diabetes-day/
And then I added a couple berries on top of my mini lemon-cookie pizzas and OMG TO DIE FOR.
Carolyn says
Sounds wonderful!
Kristin says
I can’t have egg yolks, I can have egg whites. Is there something else that I can use instead of the yolks?
Carolyn says
For pastry cream? No, sorry.
Adam Russell says
Do the simple math and you fimd these have over 3x the carbs shown. Deceiving keto dieters is BS. Deceiving Type 1 Diabetics should be criminal. With that said they taste great. Jist be nice if you werent part of the FDA deception machine.
Carolyn says
Hey there, I have an idea for you. Instead of coming out guns blazing and make wild accusations about someone you don’t even know, how about you politely inquire how I arrived at the nutritional calculations? You may actually stand to learn something. Something like the fact that erythritol, which technically has carbs, doesn’t affect blood sugar at all and should therefore not be treated as a carb.
I happen to have Type 2 diabetes. Do you think I would risk my own health and blood sugar just to “be part of the FDA deception machine”? Please, sir, get a grip. I have tested eryrthritol over and over on myself and I have found that it doesn’t raise my blood sugar one iota.
As for Type 1 diabetics, I have a huge following among them, particularly parents of Type 1 kids. And all of them have found that my recipes don’t mess with their (or their childrens’) blood sugar. And to accuse me of trying to deceive them is deeply offensive to me. I have been embraced by the low carb Type 1 community and I value their support. So much so that I have actually donated thousands of dollars to organizations such as The Nightscout Foundation and Type One Mod Squad.
Rethink your approach, my friend. And maybe do a little research before you make false accusations.
Kay says
I made this today, and they were ok. The crust was nice: a tiny bit chewy and with hints of lemon. I added extra lemon zest to the filling, as well as a little extra lemon juice, as I enjoy a TART lemon dessert. Still, very little lemon flavor, so I added MORE lemon zest. This never got the lemon flavor I was hoping for. I love this idea, though, so may try and make it again, but will decrease the cream and add extra lemon juice in an attempt to get a more prominent lemon flavor.
Michelle says
I made these last night for a dinner party. They were so good! I used strawberry on top instead of raspberry because that’s what I had. They are so pretty! I also made them in mini muffin tins and used a tablespoon sized measuring spoon to spread out the dough and it was the perfect size!
Deb says
Made these for Easter treat. Wonderful cookie crust and just the right level of lemon tartness! I doubled the recipe and ended up with a lot of leftover filling (good problem to have!) Appreciate a baked treat recipe that doesn’t sacrifice taste. Truly yummy! (15-17 minutes baking time to acheive golden doneness for the cookie cups).
Casty says
Hi Carolyn. I made these last weekend and they were DELICIOUS!!! They didn’t come out as pretty as yours….how did you make those cups so perfect? Can you do a video perhaps???? lolol thanks
Carolyn says
I will consider it! Not sure how they are perfect, I just pressed them up the sides.
Audrey T. says
I made the pastry cream today. It’s chilling right now. I actually made half of the batch lemon and half of it vanilla. The small bits I sampled were delicious. I’m not sure exactly where the cream will end up yet. Maybe just in my tummy. Hehe.
stacy says
Made it, loved it. Had a little accident when the rack slipped out of my hands and about 2/3 of them ended up in a sloppy heap on the floor. So heartbreaking.
I don’t know why it is that LC baking seems to taste better the next day when traditional sugar and flour goodies are best straight from the oven, but these were excellent when I had one with my coffee this morning. I did use the mini muffin pan and put some in the freezer for portion control-I hope they freeze well.. I put some blueberries in a few of them before topping them with pastry cream, and they were good both ways. Next time I think I’d like to trade orange for lemon, put a dab of chia seed raspberry jam in the bottom and top with chocolate ganache.
Thank you for another out of this world recipe. Your recipes make this way of eating one I can really see sticking to for life.
Carolyn says
Oh no, so sorry the ones fell to the floor!