Sugar-Free Recipes Revisited

Last month, I wrote about my holiday cookie tradition, and in our podcast, I mentioned that I would try to find a way to make my cake-mix cookies in a sugar-free way. I wanted to take my recipe (linked below) a step further and make them keto. As we have discussed before, sugar-free doesn’t necessarily mean keto.

There are plenty of sugar-free cake mixes out there. What immediately comes to mind is the popular sugar-free line of cake mixes by Pillsbury® that could be easily substituted in my earlier recipe for cake mix cookies to lower the sugar content in the cookies. To make it keto, I needed to take it a step further and lower the carbohydrate content as well.

In the past, I have been on different forms of a low carbohydrate diet. These types of diets are difficult for me because I have a sweet tooth. As I mentioned in my sugar-free baking blog, I have been on the hunt for a substitute to trick my brain into thinking I am being bad while I am still being somewhat good. I call it “healthy junk,” and I have been on a mission to satisfy those cravings since I started my weight loss journey in the spring of 2019.

I typically go to Sprouts Farmer’s Market or Market Street to get my “healthy junk”, and I will further explain my grocery shopping science in an upcoming budget shopping blog. However, I want to explain why I like these grocery stores so much. Sprouts caters to individuals with special diets such as myself (I am low-carb, gluten-free, and mostly dairy-free) by labeling their pre-packaged foods with diet-friendly labels to make the process of grocery shopping quicker and easier. The labeling process is also very helpful for those just starting out on a special diet.

At the store, I discovered that Swerve® also makes a sugar-free and keto-friendly cake mix. I also picked up some Lily’s® no sugar added Pumpkin Spice chips (on clearance) for a low-sugar add-in. From there, I kept the recipe the same and just substituted the Swerve® cake mix and the pumpkin spice chips. I did not change the oil and egg ratio or the baking time. I wanted to see how they turned out.

I could not be happier with the result! The box yielded 18 cookies with less than 1 gram of sugar and 4 grams of carbohydrates per cookie. As with Swerve®, if you are familiar, this consistency is a bit grainier than a normal cake mix cookie, but the taste is very similar.

For keto dieters that are not a fan of Swerve® or would like a cheaper option that you can find in any grocery store, Duncan Hines® also has a keto cake mix on the shelves as well as Birch Benders®

As always, let me know what you think in the comments below. If you try this keto recipe, what would you do differently?

Check out our downloads page for my cake-mix cookie recipe:

Downloads

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