Pecan Sandies (Keto Shortbread Cookies)
INGREDIENTS
- 3/4 cup
blanched almond flour (3 ounces weight) - 1/2 cup pecans (2 ounces weight)
- 4 tbsp salted butter, softened
- 1/4 cup
confectioners swerve sweetener (1 ounce weight) - 1/2 tsp
vanilla extract - 1/2 tsp
almond extract
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat the oven to 325 F. Prepare a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. - Process 75% of pecans through a blender or food processor for a few seconds until they’re finely ground. Chop the remaining 25% of pecans into small pieces.
In a mixing bowl, use an electric hand mixer to beat together butter and sweetener until smooth and creamy, about a few minutes on low speed, scraping down the beaters as needed. - Add vanilla and almond extracts, then beat until just combined, about 10 seconds on low speed.
- Add almond flour and finely ground pecans to the butter mixture, beating together until well-mixed, about 30 seconds on low speed. Stir in chopped pecans.
- Divide the dough into 8 to 10 balls about 1 1/2 inches in diameter, and flatten them to form cookies. Spread them out on the lined baking sheet.
- Bake at 325 F until they’re brown around the edges, 15 to 20 minutes. Let the cookies cool completely before removing from parchment paper. They’re very soft after baking, and will harden as they cool.
NUTRITION
| Makes 10 Servings |
| Amount Per Serving (1 cookie): |
| Calories 130 (90% from fat) | |
| Total Fat 13g | 20% |
| Saturated Fat 3g | 17% |
| Cholesterol 12mg | 4% |
| Sodium 40mg | 2% |
| Net Carb 1g | |
| Total Carb 2.5g | 1% |
| Dietary Fiber 1.5g | 6% |
| Sugars 0.5g | |
| Protein 2g |
What Are Pecan Sandies?
Pecan sandies are delicious nutty cookies, great for special occasions and holidays like Christmas. They’re dry shortbread-like cookies. These are a bit crumbly, but not too soft and not too hard.
They remind me a bit of mexican wedding cookies — also known by many other names like polvorones, russian tea cakes, or snowball cookies — except that these pecan cookies aren’t dusted in powdered sugar.
Recipe Development
Shortbread cookies are traditionally three parts flour, two parts butter, and one part sugar. I started off with those proportions, using almond flour and a sugar-free sweetener. Since pecan sandies are supposed to be nutty in flavor, almond flour makes for a perfect low carb substitution.
My early experiments yielded cookies that were too greasy, so I made some modifications by adding both chopped pecans and ground pecans to balance the fat content. Doing so also increased the pecan flavor, which is always a plus. Note that you can easily get ground pecans by pulsing whole pecans in a blender (I use a Nutribullet).
After getting the texture right, I added both vanilla and almond extracts for a richer flavor.
Tips For Making Successful Pecan Sandies
- For best results, measure out all ingredients by weight, not volume. This is especially true for the sweetener, which can vary a lot in volume depending if it’s granular or powdered, and how it’s packed.
- Look for “almond flour,” not just “ground almonds” which may not be fine enough. I’ve used brands like Trader Joe’s, Kirkland, King Arthur Flour — they all work great. Nutritionally, it should have 2g net carbs per 1 ounce (1/4 cup) serving.
- I use Swerve, which is an erythritol blend that measures the same as sugar. If you use another type of sweetener, ideally choose a dry one that’s a 1:1 substitution for sugar. That way, you’ll maintain the same ratio of dry to wet ingredients in this recipe. Note that pure erythritol is only 70% as sweet as sugar and therefore not a 1:1 sugar substitution, and sometimes has rather large granules that you should powder first using a small blender like a Nutribullet.
- After baking, don’t touch or otherwise disturb the cookies until they have a chance to cool to room temperature. They will be super soft, and will harden as they cool. This could take up to a few hours.
- If you prefer your pecan sandies to be on the drier and harder side, you can add an extra 1/2 ounce of almond flour or ground pecans to the dough. This will make them firmer, which some people prefer.
These are OUTSTANDING! I used Swerve brown sugar in place of white and the results were spectacular. I had a chef/friend try these cookies and she didn’t know they were low carb. My other tip: press the dough into a square pan lined with parchment or seran wrap (with long tails to make it easy to remove) and freeze the dough for @30 minutes give or take. It makes them easy to cut into 1″ squares and bake. SO good!
These are so delicious! Very hard to eat just 1. Instead of using the almond extract, I used a full teaspoon of vanilla. I’ve tried the half tsp of almond extract before and thought it gave it an imitation flavor (McCormick).
These literally melt in your mouth! Thank you for sharing!
Just made these and they are delicious! I added a couple of pinches of coarse salt to my dough at the end. Will definitely add these to my ‘favorite cookies’ rotation!
These cookies are incredible! I made them today exactly as written, and they were perfect! A cookie (well two, actually) and a cup of coffee after dinner tonight . . . so good! Thank you for sharing this recipe.
I have made these twice so far and they come out Perfect both times. These cookies are just fantastic. Very tasty little fat bombs.
I made these and had to bring the rest to work since I ate half of them while they were cooling! They are absolutely delicious! So easy to make and so few ingredients. Thank you for sharing. I will be making these again soon (to share of course, they are too dangerous to keep at home)….
Haha I’m glad you enjoyed them, Sheila. I know all too well the dangers of keeping something tasty stocked at home…
I have made these a few times. Delicious. Today I used macadamias instead of pecans. Yummo xxxxxxx
Thanks for the tip! I am going to try this!! Sounds delicious!
I made these last night,they are so moist so good,thank you very much for all your recipes!
I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed them, May 🙂
Can I use coconut flour?
My husband was recently diagnosed as type 2 diabetes and has given up so much trying to not go on meds for over 2 yrs. We have never been sweet eaters so was not sure at the time how this happened. But as we started learning and gathering info we made a plan to change things and the only thing missing was he wanted some type of snack. Looking online I found this recipe and so glad I did. One of the easiest things I have ever made and let me tell you. Better than store bought. Love love love it!
I didn’t have almond extract so I used Carmel and it really worked. Also didn’t want to bake right away so I formed it into a tube wrapped in plastic wrap and put in the fridge until I was ready to bake — Sliced evenly and baked all uniform and evenly cooked — they don’t spread so I only had to bake once — did let them cool on the cookie sheet before removing them.
Anyone add Anise extract? Just wondering if it would be good in these.
Delicious, they are freshly baked and cooling. Thanks for the recipe.
Confectioners sugar? Not granulated? Just making sure I’m doing the right thing…
Right, I use confectioners not granulated, by the brand Swerve.
Made this recipe today. Instead of chopping the extra pecans I chopped up dried cranberries. They are very tasty.