These Coconut Flour Shortbread Cookies are soft, buttery melt-in-your-mouth coconut cookies delicious for your Christmas cookie platter. Bonus, these are gluten-free keto coconut flour cookies, 100% sweetened with natural low-carb sweeteners, and come with only 1.8 grams of net carbs each.
It’s funny how we tend to pause a diet during the holidays, but I am here to help you get through Christmas and keep it keto this year. Actually, if there’s something I learned in the past years on a keto diet, it is that you can make delicious Keto Christmas cookies that all your family love and won’t guess are sugar-free cookies!
So let me share with you this new creation, a soft, melt-in-your-mouth coconut shortbread cookie.
Why You’ll Love These Cookies
These coconut flour shortbread tastes like a regular soft shortbread cookie with a strong coconut flavor from coconut flavor. It’s a healthy low-carb keto cookie recipe that is also naturally:
- Grain-free
- Nut-free
- Low-carb
- Gluten-free
In fact, coconut flour is a gluten-free flour that makes wonderful healthy cookies with fewer carbs and more nutrients like fiber and proteins.
Ingredients and Substitutions
- Large Eggs – make sure you use large eggs, not small or medium eggs, to avoid dry cookies.
- Softened Butter – if you have a dairy allergy, use dairy-free butter, like vegan blocks. However, I don’t recommend using coconut oil for this recipe. The cookies come out harder and not as moist.
- Powdered Sweetener – I am using powdered erythritol, but any keto powder sweetener works well, or regular powder sugar if not keto.
- Coconut Flour – make sure you measure the coconut flour precisely. Fill the cup, shake, sweep the top. Don’t overly pack the flour in the cup because, again, this makes cookies dry. Learn why coconut flour can’t be swapped.
- Vanilla Extract – for flavor.
How To Make Coconut Flour Shortbread Cookies
It’s so easy to make a soft coconut shortbread using coconut flour. The success of baking with coconut flour is adding more moist ingredients like eggs, butter, or milk.
In fact, coconut flour is four times more liquid absorbent than other keto flours, so you must add significantly more moisture to the batter, or it ends up with dry coconut flour cookies.
- First, using the paddle attachment of a stand mixer or a hand beater, beat softened butter and powder sweetener together until light and creamy. This takes about 1 minute on high speed – speed 7-8 of a stand mixer.
- Now, stir in vanilla extract and eggs and beat again on the low-speed setting to incorporate.
- Finally, beat in coconut flour until the dough is yellow, soft, butter slightly wet but still hold well in your hand if squeezed.
- Set aside 2 minutes and meanwhile prepare the baking sheets.
- Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and lightly oil the paper with coconut oil or olive oil set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Now the dough is ready to be shaped into little shortbread cookies,
- Scoop out one tablespoon of coconut flour cookie dough, roll it between your hands to form a ball. The dough should be wet, hold together, and not fragile or crumbly. If crumbly or too dry, it means you used less liquid – smaller eggs, less butter. To adjust a dry cookie dough, add one extra tablespoon of almond milk.
- Place all the cookie dough balls onto the prepared cookie sheet leaving half a thumb of space between each cookie ball.
- Lightly flatten each ball with your hands gently. The cookies don’t expand in the oven, so the shape you give them now is the shape they will have after baking.
- Mark the top of each cookie with the back of a fork to create a lovely shortbread print.
- Bake the cookies on the center rack of your oven for 10 minutes at 350°F (180°C) until just golden brown on top. Don’t overbake the cookies, or they come out dry.
- Let them cool down on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes, then cool down on a wire rack.
Decoration
This is totally optional, but I like to dip half of the shortbread cookies into melted dark chocolate. First, cool the cookies completely for 30 minutes or until they reach room temperature.
My recipe for cookie chocolate shell is super simple:
- Place 1/2 cup of sugar-free chocolate chips and one teaspoon of coconut oil in a microwave-safe bowl.
- Microwave in 30-second bursts, stirring and repeating until the chocolate is fully melted.
- Dip half of each keto shortbread cookie into the melted chocolate.
- Cool the low-carb shortbread cookies down on a plate covered with lightly oiled parchment paper. You can pop the plate in the fridge to set the chocolate shell faster.
Storage Instructions
These keto-friendly nut-free cookies can be stored very well in the fridge in Ziploc bags or airtight cookie jars for up to 1 week. You can also freeze these gluten-free shortbread cookies for later and thaw them at room temperature the day before.
Frequently Asked Questions
Coconut flour is a high-fiber flour; it absorbs a lot of liquid, and if your cookies are dry, it means you didn’t add the correct ratio of liquid to dry ingredients. It can be that your eggs are too small, or you didn’t measure the butter well or added too much coconut flour (perhaps your flour is denser than mine).
No, this recipe won’t work with egg replacers or flax eggs. Their texture will be very crumbly, and the cookies will fall apart. Try my almond flour shortbread cookies for an egg-free keto cookie recipe.
Absolutely, coconut flour comes from raw coconut flesh. It does taste a lot like coconut.
More Christmas Cookie Recipes
Below I listed some more Christmas cookie recipes to try this Christmas.
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In the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, or in a large mixing bowl using a hand beater, beat softened butter and powder sweetener for 1 minute on high speed. The mixture should be creamy and soft.
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Add the vanilla extract and eggs and beat on low-medium speed until fully incorporated – about 30 seconds.
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Stir in coconut flour and beat again until the batter is soft, buttery, slightly wet, but not liquid. Set aside for 2 minutes.
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Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and lightly oil the paper and your hands with coconut oil. Set aside.
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Scoop one tablespoon of cookie dough and roll it into a small ball between your hands. The dough should hold well in your hand when squeezed, but it shouldn’t be sticky to your fingers, crumbly, or too wet.
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Place each cookie dough ball on the prepared cookie sheet leaving half a thumb of space between each ball.
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Slightly flatten each cookie dough ball with your hand, then use the back of a fork to mark the top – optional, but it looks lovely!
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Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until the top is just golden brown. Don’t overbake, or the cookies will be dry.
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Cool down on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes. The cookies are quite soft, and that’s what you want to make soft melt in your mouth shortbread.
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Gently transfer to a wire rack to fully cool down – about 30 minutes.
Decoration
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To decorate with chocolate (optional), melt 1/2 cup sugar-free chocolate chips with one teaspoon coconut oil and dip half the cookies in the melted chocolate.
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Place the dipped cookies onto a plate covered with lightly oiled parchment paper.
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Pop the plate in the fridge for 15 minutes to set the chocolate shell quickly.
Serving: 1 plain cookieCalories: 118.9 kcal (6%)Carbohydrates: 4.4 g (1%)Fiber: 2.6 g (11%)Net Carbs: 1.8 gProtein: 2.7 g (5%)Fat: 9.9 g (15%)Saturated Fat: 6.3 g (39%)Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.5 gMonounsaturated Fat: 2.4 gTrans Fat: 0.3 gCholesterol: 66.8 mg (22%)Sodium: 101.2 mg (4%)Potassium: 20.3 mg (1%)Sugar: 0.6 g (1%)Vitamin A: 303.9 IU (6%)Vitamin B12: 0.1 µg (2%)Vitamin D: 0.4 µg (3%)Calcium: 9.3 mg (1%)Iron: 0.4 mg (2%)Magnesium: 1.7 mgZinc: 0.2 mg (1%)
About The Author
Carine Claudepierre
Hi, I’m Carine, the food blogger, author, recipe developer, published author of a cookbook, and founder of Sweet As Honey.
I have an Accredited Certificate in Nutrition and Wellness obtained in 2014 from Well College Global (formerly Cadence Health). I’m passionate about sharing all my easy and tasty recipes that are both delicious and healthy. My expertise in the field comes from my background in chemistry and years of following a keto low-carb diet. But I’m also well versed in vegetarian and vegan cooking since my husband is vegan.
I now eat a more balanced diet where I alternate between keto and a Mediterranean Diet
Cooking and Baking is my true passion. In fact, I only share a small portion of my recipes on Sweet As Honey. Most of them are eaten by my husband and my two kids before I have time to take any pictures!
All my recipes are at least triple tested to make sure they work and I take pride in keeping them as accurate as possible.
Browse all my recipes with my Recipe Index.
I hope that you too find the recipes you love on Sweet As Honey!
