Crunchy low carb macadamia nut biscotti with a sweet lime glaze. Perfect for morning coffee, afternoon tea or even as dessert!
Let’s discuss macadamia nuts, shall we? There was a time when I completely disregarded this pale blonde nut of Australian origin. This was largely due to its exorbitant price tag; being the frugal girl I am, I saw little reason to purchase macadamias when other nuts were so much less expensive. I think I also saw them as something a little frou-frou. They were always what people brought back from a trip to Hawaii, they were usually covered in chocolate and they often were a little stale and didn’t taste very good. They were tourist gimmicks, if you will, and not to be taken very seriously as nuts go. So they simply didn’t make it into my arsenal of baking supplies and I didn’t see why they were so highly prized by others.
I am not sure exactly what changed but macadamia nuts have grown on me in the past few years. Well, not grown ON me, because that would be very strange. Imagine me walking around with macadamia nut trees growing all over me, wouldn’t that be a sight to see? No, macadamias still come from Australia and Hawaii but I’ve come to like and appreciate them a great deal more. I now usually keep a bag of roasted, salted macs from Trader Joe’s for snacking and I’ve started to incorporate the raw nuts into my baking quite a bit. That rich, buttery flavour can really shine in low carb recipes and they certainly have the fat content to play a strong role in a low carb high fat diet.
They have such a high fat content that I find I do need to adjust my recipes to account for this. Typically I find I need to add a lot less butter or additional oil to the recipe. A while back I used macadamia nuts for some low carb Chocolate Macadamia Tarts and I added my usually amount of butter, only to have it leaking out during the baking process. Lesson learned! So for this low carb biscotti recipe, I held back on the additional butter until I saw how the dough came together. In the end, I only needed half the amount of butter I usually use in biscotti.
I will warn you that while these biscotti are addictively delicious. They were really delightful with my morning coffee and I had difficulty sharing. My husband and my son apparently thought so too, as I discovered them disappearing a little faster than they ought. Oh well, time to make another batch!
- 1 cup raw macadamia nuts
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1/3 cup Swerve Sweetener
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp melted butter
- 1 large egg
- zest of one lime
- 3 tbsp powdered Swerve Sweetener
- juice of 1 lime
- Preheat oven to 325F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a food processor or high powered blender, grind macadamia nuts until they resemble coarse meal and clump together (a few larger bits are okay).
- Transfer to a bowl and whisk in almond flour, sweetener, baking powder, xanthan gum and salt. Stir in butter, egg and lime zest until dough comes together.
- Turn dough out onto prepared baking sheet and pat into a low, long log about 4 x 10 inches. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until edges are just golden brown and top is firm to the touch. Remove from oven and let cool completely.
- Reduce oven temperature to 250F. With a VERY sharp, non-serrated knife, cut into 12 slices (a straight up and down motion works better than sawing back and forth).
- Place slices cut-side down on the same parchment-lined baking sheet and bake 15 minutes, then gently flip and bake another 10 to 15 minutes. Remove and let cool completely.
- For the glaze, whisk together sweetener and lime juice in a small bowl. Drizzle over cooled biscotti.
Serves 12. Each serving has 4.05 g of carbs and 2.09 g of fiber. Total NET CARBS = 1.96 g.
Food energy: 162kcal
Saturated fatty acids: 3.06g
Total fat: 15.51g
Calories from fat: 139
Cholesterol: 5mg
Carbohydrate: 4.05g
Total dietary fiber: 2.09g
Protein: 3.32g
Sodium: 97mg
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Lin says
August 6, 2014 at 6:30 amI get excited whenever I check my email and see that you have posted a new recipe. I am looking forward to making the biscotti !
Christine at Cook the Story says
August 6, 2014 at 8:15 amThese will be perfect with my morning coffee!
Aly says
August 6, 2014 at 9:51 amI think I’m going to have to try these today! Last week I made your coconut cheesecake with the macadamia crust. I over processed the nuts and released so much oil that I didn’t add any butter to the crust at all. The crust was DIVINE. I kind of want to just take that crust recipe and adapt it into cookies or something. Macadamia coconut cookies!
linda says
August 6, 2014 at 11:29 amIt certainly would be a “site” to see – spots on a great food wizard covered with Macadamia nuts….. I think you meant “sight”.
Maybe Macadamias are like olives – a grown up treat….
Love your ideas!
Carolyn says
August 6, 2014 at 1:25 pmThanks for the catch! Yep, I meant sight. I write the word “site” so often when discussing my blog, I had a little typo. Plus I was very much not into writing yesterday when I wrote this post. I am never as good when I am not in the mood for it and find myself with little to say.
linda says
August 6, 2014 at 3:21 pmI have pine nuts (pignolis) that I need to use up. Would this be a good substitution? The nutrition profile (and price) are very similar.
Carolyn says
August 6, 2014 at 4:49 pmI have no idea since I didn’t test it.
maria says
August 6, 2014 at 11:39 amDear Carolyn
Your walnut maple biscotti recipe made it possible for me to stay low carb—opened up a new world of baking. Thank you. This recipe sounds lovely.
But I found that leaving out all the butter and adding an extra egg to all your biscotti recipes improved them for me—tastier, lighter, more biscotti-like. I am not anti-butter. Love the stuff. Just not in biscotti.
Maria Rose
Carolyn says
August 6, 2014 at 1:24 pmHuh, that is very interesting. I will try that next time I develop a biscotti recipe.
Sarah G says
August 6, 2014 at 1:54 pmBut if you had them growing on you, you could save so much money. LOL!
I have always loved macadamias, just can’t ever splurge on the little guys. This looks so good, though!
Kim - Liv Life says
August 6, 2014 at 11:33 pmI positively adore mac nuts!! We make our own macadamia butter on occasion for a special treat, and I love them in salads and, yes… cookies. But you’ve gone even a step further and added my beloved lime!! What a fabulous combo!
Lin says
August 8, 2014 at 6:29 amI’m munching on my biscotti as I type. These were a hit with us! I thought I’d have a problem finding the raw nuts, but my local health food store carried them. They were pricey though, so now I am doing a web search to find raw macadamia nuts online, in bulk, and cheaper, because I can see lots of biscotti in my future, as well as other macadamia nut recipes. They don’t have a strong taste so they are perfect for use in baking as they don’t overwhelm other flavors. Thanks!!
Hope says
August 9, 2014 at 2:44 pmJust got back from a week in Maui, should have brought back more macadamia nuts!
Nancy says
August 25, 2014 at 2:37 pmSwerve tastes weird to us, is there anything else that would be equivalent and not leave a strange taste in your mouth?
Carolyn says
August 25, 2014 at 3:28 pmHave you tried xylitol?
Nancy says
August 25, 2014 at 3:44 pmYes, we have tried xylitol in other recipes, never by itself though, usually combined with some other sweetener. I guess it could work alone, or maybe divide the amount with erythritol or stevia. I don’t know, I always get the combinations wrong, then I’ve used all of these expensive ingredients to make a product no one will eat, so I’m nervous.
Carolyn says
August 25, 2014 at 4:46 pmI don’t taste anything funny from Swerve, so it’s hard for me to guide you. But I find if you sweeten half with erythritol or xylitol and have with stevia extract (and by half, I mean in sugar equivalencies, because of course stevia is so super concentrated), it can do a good job. So in this case, I might do 3 tbsp erythritol or xylitol and 1/8 tsp liquid stevia extract in the biscotti. The glaze will have to be all powdered erythritol or xylitol because you can’t make a glaze out of stevia like that.
Nancy says
August 25, 2014 at 4:54 pmThat is shocking, that you don’t taste the weirdness!! It is an odd taste that stays in your mouth, my whole family was just stressed out by it. My husband even had to go eat something else to just get the taste out, as tooth brushing would not get rid of it. Well I guess if you are used to it or have not eaten sugar in a long long time, it may be you just can’t tell, but my oldest daughter is a science major in college and said it felt as though it changes your taste buds for a long time afterwards. I honestly felt like it was like breathing in nail polish remover fumes!!! I’m not here to gripe about Swerve, in tiny amounts or mixed with something else it seems ok, but when its all Swerve we can’t handle it. Thank you for your ideas, I will give them a try.
Vicky says
February 4, 2015 at 11:56 pmHi Nancy,
It’s called the “cooling effect” and it bothers lots of people. It’s especially evident for me with the confectioners version. I almost always use Splenda to replace half the Swerve and that works well for me. Perfect sweetness without the weird taste.
lisa says
August 30, 2014 at 2:35 pmI made these and they turned out beautifully. I’m always looking for recipes that I can bring to “regular” pot lucks, and these were well received. I did have to add more almond flour as the dough was too moist.
linda says
August 31, 2014 at 7:36 amI think I’m addicted to these… I made the first batch with dry roasted, unsalted Macadamias – and it was wet (probably ground the nuts too much). The second batch was with pignolis and lemon – which was also good, but the Macadamia nut flavour is hard to beat. Just finished another batch using raw Macadamias with lime and they were amazing!! Not too wet, not too dry – a wonderful breakfast with my latte!
Thanks Carolyn!
Georgia says
August 7, 2017 at 4:21 amI look forward to making your biscotti–I’ve been searching for a NON-vegan recipe that uses almond flour. I think I’ll try it with the butter first, and then try it using coconut oil. And I’d also like to experiment using different nuts and dried fruits (toasted almonds or pistachios, and dried apricots, figs or cranberries…) Thanks
Christiana says
November 7, 2017 at 2:06 pmI make these often, they are so delicious! However, Swerve isn’t available in Europe and plain erythritol doesnt emulsify with the lime juice to produce a nice glaze. Any suggestions?
Carolyn says
November 7, 2017 at 6:30 pmYou really need to get a powdered erythritol sweetener. Sukrin has one.
Christiana Hancox says
November 13, 2017 at 11:34 amThank you! I’ve tried just a regular powdered erythritol, without too much success, but I see that Sukrin has Steviol glycosides in the ingredient list, so it is probably closest to Swerve. I’ll give it a try – thanks again.
linda says
November 7, 2017 at 3:57 pmI found that I could grind Swerve (coffee grinder) to be as fine as the Confectioners version. I used this and it made the glaze. Maybe your erythritol could be ground very fine too. Good luck. I love this recipe too!
Renee says
January 15, 2019 at 4:58 pmThese biscotti are delicious! I took the advice of another commenter and added another egg, cut the butter in half (1 tbsp) and after the second bake, I put the cookies in the dehydrator overnight. Holy moo are these good! Just like the real thing, crispy, crunchy and definitely flavorful! Thanks!!