Chewy Pumpkin Cookies
Made my hubby some delicious pumpkin cookies this afternoon. They came out very moist and flavorful. And for once, they are sweet enough! Honestly, none of the low-carb pumpkin cookie recipes I’ve tried so far have been sweet enough for me, and just not moist enough either. I basically took my Almond Butter Cookies https://buttoni.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/almond-butter-cookies/ and added pumpkin and appropriate spices. The texture is soft, but not quite chewy like my Almond Butter cookies, so the pumpkin lessened the chewy quality of the base dough, it would appear. By the way, these freeze very nicely and are very good eaten in that semi-frozen state. 🙂 These are not suitable until the nuts and seeds rung of the Atkins Phase 2 OWL carb ladder has been reached. Just so you know, I use Honeyville Grains coconut flour, almond flour and oat fiber but they are also available from Netrition.com.
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INGREDIENTS:
2 c. almond flour
½ c. coconut flour
1 T. oat fiber (omit for gluten free)
1 tsp. glucomannan powder
1/8 tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
½ c. granular Splenda
1 T. erythritol (or your preferred sweetener equivalent to 4 tsp. sugar)
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. nutmeg
¼ tsp. ground cloves
½ c. melted butter or coconut oil
2 T. almond butter
1 T. vanilla extract
½ c. canned pumpkin
1 egg, beaten
¼ c. sugar-free honey (I buy at Walmart)
DIRECTIONS: Preheat oven to 350º. In a large mixing bowl stir the almond butter, pumpkin and butter/oil together until smooth. Beat in the egg, vanilla and imitation honey. Measure in all dry ingredients on top and stir well to form a smooth dough. Dough is wet, but you can slightly roll it in your palms. If your dough seems too dry or stiff and won’t hold together (coconut flours vary a lot), 1 T. more pumpkin. If too wet, add 1 T. more coconut flour. Roll dough into 1″ balls and place them onto parchment or silicone lined baking sheet. Press balls down slightly flat with your fingers, leaving 1″ between cookies. Pop pan into preheated oven. Bake for about 15 minutes or until firm in center and beginning to brown around edges. Do not over brown these cookies or texture will be drier. Remove from oven and do not try to lift them right away. Cool completely for them to achieve their proper texture. These are delicate while hot but “firm up” nicely when they cool. Enjoy! Leftovers store just fine in a cookie jar on your counter or in a plastic bag in your freezer.
NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes 36-37 cookies (I got 37 and calculated accordingly) 1½” in diameter. Each cookie contains:
77.6 calories
6.95 g fat
3.18 g carbs, 1.4 g fiber, 1.78 g NET CARBS
1.83 g protein
34.7 mg sodium
14.7 mg potassium
Buttoni's Low-Carb Recipes 
I have all the ingredients except Almond Butter. Could I substitute peanut butter or just leave it out?? Thanks for your sage advice.
I’m sure you could sub in peanut butter. The taste may come through a bit, as it’s stronger. I would NOT just leave it out or they won’t cook right. BTW, a pretty cheap source for almond butter is Walmart. Sits right by the peanut butters. Or you can pulse almonds in your food processor or blender with some oil until it’s a smooth consistency. 🙂
Hi Peggy, I just wanted to let you know that my parrot loves these pumpkin cookies, and so do I 🙂 I omit the oat flour, gluco pwdr and honey and they still come out great. I keep a batch in the fridge and have 2-3 a couple of times a week as a snack. Thank you!
oops, I meant ‘in the freezer’
Well, I’m delighted to hear that, Deb. And I think? I’m glad your parrot likes them, too. 🙂 I’m surprised they came out good w/o the honey, as the one time I forgot it in a batch, they were so dry you couldn’t swallow them. But that was the plain almond version. Maybe the moisture of the pumpkin is the difference. 🙂
What is glucomman powder and what does it do for the recipe?
It’s pure fiber from the Konjac root. It’s what shirataki noodles are made from, in fact. It contributes to smooth texture and a chewy quality in these cookies. I find a little in most of my baked goods is a consistently a GOOD thing. It also helps make you feel full (being fiber) and has a sort of built in portion control as an added benefit. Also touted to help maintain even blood glucose levels.
I strictly eat organic and I don’t have to worry about carbs. Do you have a version of this that leaves out ALL coconut ( I’m allergic), all artificial sweeteners, no gums, or glucomannan powder? I get my honey from a local grower. They don’t ad sugar to locally grown honey. I haven’t seen it added in any form to any of the commercial brands. Honey is honey. I use it to make pectin free jam. Many of the pectins contain dextrose. If you have to watch sugar intake, that is a nasty hidden one. I could live on almond butter and bluebrry jam . I buy the whole grain tortillas from Sams. 20 for 5 bucks. EXCELLENT replacement for breads. High fiber, high protein, no sugar if any form added. They are vegan and meet ADA requirements as a low carb food. The brand is Santa Fe. They are soft. No cardboard. Some brands are awful.
Well, Christine, after reading your post, I would recommend you begin to do kitchen experimenting to meet your food requirements/restrictions. If you have to substitute for that many ingredients, I don’t think I can really help you. Allergies and self-imposed avoidances need to be studied and addressed by the person that suffers them, to be honest and realistic. I can’t accommodate everyone’s limitations in my kitchen experiments. If I tried, I’d never get OUT of the kitchen. I’m sure you can understand. I’d have to bake/experiment with hundreds of different people’s allergy requests to even be able to answer your initial question. But there are numerous forums on the net with recipes for gluten-free, dairy free, vegan and so forth. Yes, honey is honey, but it is VERY high in natural sugar and therefore very high in carbs. Honey just doesn’t work for a low carber. Sam’s whole grain tortillas have real flour in them and I don’t eat real flour. So you and I are definitely on two divergent eating plans. Sorry I can’t be of more help. But your requirements are too many for me to undertake.