A holiday classic gets a healthy makeover! These Keto Butter Cookies are buttery and crisp, and piped in festive swirls. Dip them in chocolate or leave them plain, it’s up to you.
Remember those Danish butter cookies making the rounds every holiday season? You know the ones – they came in a pretty blue metal tin and the cookies were all nestled in fluted paper cups.
Every house had them, back in my childhood. It was standard holiday issue, usually gifted by some aunt, grandmother, or coworker. They were tasty but the tin usually lasted so long, they grew stale before you could eat them all.
Well, you no longer need to mourn those holiday memories, because Keto Butter Cookies have arrived! And they are just as buttery, tender, and sweet as the real thing.
They look so festive on a cookie tray, along with other favorites like Keto Sugar Cookies and perhaps a few Chewy Keto Ginger Cookies. How can you resist?
Why you will love these cookies
I can’t tell you how fun it was to tackle this classic cookie recipe. I actually had to tackle it a few times, as the first few batches simply didn’t live up to the butter cookies of my memory.
It’s a tricky thing to get right, a soft dough that you can pipe into pretty swirls, whilst also being firm enough to not completely dissolve during baking. All the more tricky with keto ingredients!
But it was worth it to me to persevere. I found that if I let them sit in a warm oven, they got firmed up without browning too much. They stayed super buttery, but with a delightful crispness. Just like the real deal.
Reader Reviews
“These cookies are so delicious. Crisp on outside and melt in our mouth inside. Perfect. I will be making more of these. I was going to make these to take to work. Unfortunately, I don’t think they will last that long. So so good. Thank you so much.” — Charlie
“Just made a batch of these and they are delicious! Will be making more for the family Christmas gathering (I’m on dessert detail). Keeper! Thanks Carolyn for this one and all the many other wonderous recipes you share.Delicious and so simple to make. They look and taste great. Definitely recommend this recipe.” — Valerie
“Another perfect recipe! I will be able to make my family our traditional cookies once again – it’s been 7 years!!” — Jocelyne
Ingredient Notes
- Almond flour: Use finely ground almond flour so your cookies will have the best texture without being grainy. If you need to be nut-free, try using sunflower seed flour.
- Sweetener: You need an erythritol based sweetener for these cookies to firm up properly.
- Butter: If you use salted butter, you can omit the additional salt in the recipe. Be sure to use softened butter for better consistency.
- Sugar-free dark chocolate: Both Lily’s and ChocZero work well for the chocolate coating.
- Cocoa butter: I add a little cocoa butter to the melted chocolate for a smoother melt. You can also use ½ tablespoon to 1 tablespoon coconut oil, but they will be much more melty at room temperature.
- Sugar-free sprinkles: If you want to decorate your cookies with a little something extra, you can use store bought or homemade sugar free sprinkles. You could also use finely chopped nuts.
- Pantry staples: Eggs, vanilla extract, and salt.
Step by step directions
1. Combine the dry ingredients: In a food processor, combine the almond flour, sweetener, and salt. Pulse to combine.
2. Add the wet ingredients: Cut the softened butter into chunks and add to the processor. Pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the egg and vanilla and process until the dough clumps together.
3. Pipe the cookie dough: Fit a piping bag with a large open star tip such as the Ateco #826 or 828, and fill with dough. Holding the bag straight up and down, pipe the dough into tight circles, about 2 inches in diameter, onto two baking sheets lined with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.
4. Bake the cookies: Bake at 325ºF for about 18 to 20 minutes, until they are just golden brown around the edges. Remove and turn off the oven. Let the oven cool for about 15 minutes, then put the cookies back in to dry out and firm up, another 15 to 20 minutes or so. Remove and let cool completely.
5. Dip in chocolate: In a heatproof bowl set over a bowl of barely simmering water, melt the chocolate and cocoa butter. Dip half of each cookie into the chocolate and set on a waxed paper lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with sugar-free sprinkles, if desired.
Tips for Success
Using a food processor makes the dough more cohesive and very well combined. I first tried just beating things together in my stand mixer but it didn’t produce as fine a dough and the resulting cookies had a slightly gritty texture.
Make sure that butter is well softened. This is an important factor too, as it helps create a softer dough that squeezes through the piping tip. The ideal temperature for softened butter is 70F. If your house is a bit chilly, give the butter a slight zap in the microwave (10 seconds).
Use a larger open star piping tip. The tip you use for piping these cookies is very important, as the prongs need to be open enough to allow the dough to squeeze through. I used the Ateco 824, but the Wilton 1M tips can work as well.
It takes a bit to get the hang of piping these cookies. But the good news is that if you mess up, you can just add the dough back into the bag to be re-piped.
Double baking helps crisp them up. Danish butter cookies should be quite crisp but you also want them a pale golden color. To avoid over-browning, I took mine out at about the 20 minute mark, but then I returned them to the warm oven for a bit to help them crisp up. Worked like a charm!
As always, your sweetener matters. The only way to achieve a truly crisp cookie is with erythritol based sweeteners such as Swerve. Other sweeteners like BochaSweet, allulose, etc, make for cake-y soft cookies. Not necessarily a bad thing but not the perfect Danish Butter Cookie consistency.
Frequently Asked Questions
Keto shortbread cookies are made like classic shortbread, which means they don’t contain any egg. These keto butter cookies have an egg to help make the dough pliable and soft, so that it can be piped into shapes.
You can easily store these cookies in freezer. Once baked and cooled, place them in an airtight container between sheets of waxed paper. They will keep for up to 2 months.
This keto Danish butter cookie recipe has 4.2g of carbs and 2.1g of fiber per serving. That comes to 2.1g net carbs per cookie.
Want more keto holiday cookie recipes?
Check out my updated holiday cookies and bars ebook. All of my most popular cookies, plus a few exclusive recipes! Only $5.99.
Keto Danish Butter Cookies
Equipment
- Piping bags
Ingredients
- 2 cups almond flour
- ⅔ cup Powdered Swerve Sweetener or other powdered erythritol
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup butter softened
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 ounces sugar-free dark chocolate chopped
- ½ ounce cocoa butter
- sugar-free sprinkles, if desired
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325F and line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.
- In a food processor, combine the almond flour, sweetener, and salt. Pulse to combine.
- Cut the softened butter into chunks and add to the processor. Pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the egg and vanilla and process until the dough clumps together in one big ball.
- Fit a piping bag with a large open star tip such as the Ateco #824, and fill with dough. Holding the bag straight up and down, pipe the dough into tight circles, about 2 inches in diameter. Tip: It takes a bit to get the hang of this but if you mess up, just take that cookie dough and add it back into the bag to be re-piped.
- Bake the cookies for about 18 to 20 minutes, until they are just golden brown around the edges. Remove and turn off the oven. Let the oven cool for about 15 minutes, then put the cookies back in to dry out and firm up, another 15 to 20 minutes or so. Remove and let cool completely.
- In a heatproof bowl set over a bowl of barely simmering water, melt the chocolate and cocoa butter. Dip half of each cookie into the chocolate and set on a waxed paper lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with sugar-free sprinkles, if desired.
June says
Is the dough stiff enough to use in a cookie press?
Carolyn says
I would think so, yes. But I also have a spritz cookie recipe!
Maria says
Hi!! I want to try this recipe, but I only have granulated erythritol. Will that work the same?
Carolyn says
No, it will get very gritty.
Cree says
First, I want to say, I loved the cookies … they weren’t what yours were though, and I am trying to understand why. Here are the only deviations to the recipe. I used Blue Diamond almond flour, and sift it through a wire sieve because that brand tends to be very gritty. Other than that I followed the directions. When processing the ingredients did not ball into a dough, it remained a thick batter. When baking my cookies spread. Held no form at all. They did crisp though, and were absolutely delicious, but I was wondering if you could tell me if the brand of almond flour has that big a difference. Or …? Thanks, and thanks for this site. Ive used it SO may times and just love it!
Carolyn says
To be honest, sounds like they don’t have enough flour in them. It’s hard when working with different brands…
Sarina says
Would this recipe work with powdered sugar?
Carolyn says
I would think so but I can’t say for sure because I never use it at all anymore!
Cassandra says
If I don’t have a food processor, can I use a stand mixer? I have a blender but it’s not great and Im worried I’ll have the melting butter issue noted in several comments. Thanks!
Carolyn says
Don’t use the blender, for sure. But I am not sure that simply mixing it will get it as cohesive as it should be.
Beth Robinson says
Hi Carolyn,
Firstly, I’d like to say how much I enjoy your recipes and can’t imagine the amount of work that went into all of them!
Secondly, what did I do wrong with this one? Exactly followed your instructions, but during baking, the cookies spread out until they were very flat with barely any piping ridges showing. They definitely weren’t neat little mounds of butter goodness (though in this house no one cares what they look like but me). Any advice?
Thanks for any help: I’m practicing for a Keto Kristmas
Beth
Carolyn says
Sounds like they didn’t have quite enough flour. What brand did you use? They do differ some but when I weigh my Bob’s red mill, it’s about 100g to 105g per cup. Try weighing it and doing it on the higher side of that, so the 105g per cup…
Beth says
Thanks! I know that weights in baking can give more accurate results so I appreciate the tip. These are definitely on the list to try again: everyone loved the flavor!
Pam says
These cookies are delicious! I didn’t even do the second baking and they were crispy! My Uber picky daughter loves them too!
Marie says
I really loved these the first time I made them. I used unblanched almond flour I took it out of the food processor before it had formed a complete ball. Anyway the second time I made it again with blanched fine almond flour for some reason the batter was way too thick to put into a pastry tube and shape. All I could do was press it down with a fork. I used all the same ingredients I think the only thing I did differently was let the door mix in the food processor a little bit more. Was that why it was so dry? Please help.
Carolyn says
Sounds like you needed more butter in there. Might be your brand of almond flour? And one reader noted that her not-so-powerful food processor worked too hard, the motor got hot, and it made the butter leach out of the dough. Could that be part of what happened here?
Adi says
Hello,
Absolutely loved the taste and simplicity of this recipe. I did use monkfruit sweetener so ended up with crazy sweet cookies.
So I wanted my mum to make this recipe but she doesn’t eat eggs. What replacement would you specifically recommend? I saw online that you could use 1 banana or 1tbsp flaxseed
Carolyn says
I am sorry, I haven’t tried this with egg replacers so I can’t know how well it will work.
Julia says
Hi , could you expand on double baking please? How many minutes and what temperature for each bake? Thanks
Carolyn says
The recipe states all of that.
Lisa says
These look delicious!!! I can’t wait to try them!!!
LIZ J says
Hi Carolyn,
I know it’s not even March yet but I’m knew to keto baking and will be tryin these early to get the hang of it for the holidays. I love Linzer cookies and could not find one on your site, are you planning to add a recipe or is there another blogger you can point to. I’m DM2 and of course I had them this past season knowing the impact on my BS????so would love a low carb version,
Thanks in advance,
LIZ J
Karen Beattie says
Can’t wait to try these out, I am horrible using a piping bag so going to use a cookie press.
Thanks so much for all your amazing recipes.
Rikke says
Hi Carolyn.
Being from Denmark I always find it a bit amusing that people love those store bought cookies so much. I never eat them – the homemade ones a sooo much better and my mother makes a giant batch every christmas. My family has a recipe that goes way back. Anyhow, the homemade variety is not piped but made with a meat grinder and cookie attachment (e.g. Kitchenaid) as the dough is much too firm to pipe. But these cookies do look absolutely delicious!
Carolyn says
Thanks, Rikke! Isn’t that always with way, with the store-bought version of some treat not actually being what people eat in the supposed country? 😉
Jen Burkhart says
I just wanted to add some comments here that may help others out? I used the monkfruit/eryithytol mix sweetener from Costco. It was a bit granular, so next time I will put it in my Vitamix to powderize it more. I did not use a food processor at all…just mixed it by hand until I could see it was all mixed up. I also used Costco’s brand of almond flour. I think higher end food processors may be the culprit of melting the butter too much. My butter was room temperature and soft when I mixed the ingredients all together. Also, I used a cookie press to press out the dough. It worked beautifully!! I’d post a picture of them if I can figure out how to do that! Excellent recipe!! Thank you!!
Carolyn says
Hi Jen, I am finding that the issue with melting butter oozing may actually be that some people’s food processors run hot and melt the butter. That’s not a “higher end” food processor issue, since mine is a very good KitchenAid. I think it’s actually smaller processors that aren’t up to the challenge of the dough that’s probably the issue. The motors may be working too hard and giving off heat.
Jean Chandler says
It seems my food processor ran a little warm as I was combining the butter and melted the butter a bit! Is there any saving the dough if I pop it into the fridge for a bit?
Carolyn says
Interesting, this is what may be happening to other people. Mine does not do this at all. I think yes, it should be fine in the fridge.
Jean Chandler says
I wanted to come back and leave an update from the last comment! It was definitely the food processor. The one I was using wasn’t a bad one, just wasn’t up to the task and was running hotter to get the dough going. This caused the butter to melt and separate from the dough. I got another one, slightly bigger, and the recipe turned out just fine! Thank you~
Carolyn says
This is really great feedback. Thanks, Jean!
Stacia says
Had the same issue with the butter oozing out of the bag and making puddles everywhere. Used BRM almond flour and powdered swerve. The butter was softened and not melted. A big ball formed in my processor but it all went south after that. Ugh!
Carolyn says
If it’s too soft, simply scrape it all back out, add a tbsp of coconut flour, and proceed again.
Jennifer says
Oh my goodness, how pretty are these! Love them!
Marianne Estum says
Yes mine spread out also.I used Wellbee’s almond flour.
Carolyn says
So the almond flour seems to be making a big difference… if you use that brand next time, try adding 1 tbsp coconut flour to your dough.
stephanie says
Finally a cookie I can eat while on my Keto diet. Will definitely be making these again!