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I think cookies are really the ultimate Christmas food, so for the past week, I’ve been thinking of all the low carb Christmas cookies I want to bake this year! The other day, I made low carb gingerbread cookies, and last night, I pulled out my little Linzer cookie cutters – and low carb vegan Linzer cookies were born!
Linzer cookies are a redux of Linzertorte – a traditional Austrian torte named for the city of Linz. This torte is typically made with crust of nuts and flour, and filled with raspberries. I know. Sounds like heaven.
Linzer cookies are a tiny take on this treat, and again, traditionally use a nut flour for the two “crust” cookies, and are filled with a tart raspberry jam. To echo the classic lattice crust, the top cookie has a little cutout – usually in a round or heart shape – through which you can see the jam. These low carb vegan linzer cookies take a small departure from the traditional recipe in that I don’t actually use nuts, because I am allergic to some nuts and realize that others are too!
I also elected to use cranberry sauce here in place of jam. To keep my cranberry sauce as low in carbs as possible, I make it myself. You can find the recipe here. I also like to make these cookies a little fancier by melting some dairy-free white chocolate and spreading a thin layer on the top of the bottom cookies in the sandwich before adding the jam. It’s actually really hard to find a sugar-free version of vegan white chocolate, but because it’s such a small quantity, it’s a negligible amount of carbs for me – keep in mind what’s best for you, though!
Baking notes for Low Carb Vegan Linzer Cookies:
- Instead of a store-bought, sugar-free jam, I used this homemade sugar-free cranberry sauce.
- You can make these extra fancy by spreading a thin layer of melted white chocolate on the top of the bottom cookie in each “sandwich” before adding the jam or cranberry sauce.
- While I strive to provide accurate nutrition information, there are variations across brands and types of ingredients. So, if you’re using other brands than those mentioned, your macros may be different. All nutrition info is calculated from the USDA values for each ingredient, unless a brand is specifically mentioned (or no generic listing is available), and are for information purposes only!
- To calculate net carbs – subtract the grams of fiber, allulose and sugar alcohols (if applicable) from the total grams of carbohydrates in the recipe.
- For this recipe, each cookie contains 1.8g of net carbs (5.4g – 3.6g of fiber)
Low Carb Vegan Linzer Cookies
Ingredients
For the Cookies
- 6 tbsp coconut flour (45g)
- 3 ounces softened vegan buttery spread (85g/6tbsp)
- 1 ounce softened vegan cream cheese (28g/2tbsp)
- 2 tbsp granulated sweetener
- 1 tsp almond or hazelnut extract
For the Filling
- 1/4 cup sugar-free jam or cranberry sauce (60ml/4 tbsp)
- 2 tbsp sugar-free, dairy-free white chocolate chips (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Cream together butter, cream cheese, granulated sweetener and flavoring.
- Stir in coconut flour until completely incorporated. You’ll have to knead it for the last little bit.
- Roll the dough out to be about 5mm thick. I know, I switched to metric there, but it really is the best descriptor – way better than, “a little more than 1/8th of an inch.”
- Use your cookie cutter to cut out 10 bottom pieces and then 10 top pieces (with the little hole). You may have to re-roll some of the dough, and depending on how cold your kitchen is, you may have to chill it a bit as well.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges just start to turn golden.
- Remove from the oven and let cool for at least a half hour! This will give them a chance to set up. If you try to pick them up too early, they will crumble.
- Spread about a tsp of sugar free jam on a bottom piece, top with the little top pieces. To make these extra fancy, I melt a little vegan white chocolate and spread a very thin layer on the bottom cookie.
- Admire how cute your cookies are, and then eat them.
Hi, 5cm thick? I think you meant 5mm…because 5cm is about 2 inches!!!
Haha, I wrote .5 cm instead of 5mm, but I can see how that would be confusing!!
Looks good and easy…I will try to make them for sure…Thanks
Thanks, Elena! I hope you enjoy them!!
Okay, this one was a puzzle for me! Followed the recipe to a T. There was no way the dough would roll out because it was super crumbly, but also, there was very little of it. Decided to salvage it and make thumbprint cookies with jam, barely got 10 teeny tiny cookies, and they did not want to hold together. They’re in the oven now. Is there a trick to these? I would definitely not have enough dough to make 10 stacked cookies, even if it had rolled out. Is this actually to make 10 cookies total, 5 stacked?
Hi Andrea! I’m sorry you had trouble with this! The measurements are correct, and I get 10 Oreo-sized stacked cookies out of this. A big part of that is that the top cookie has a little window, which can account for 1-2 full cookie stacks. So, if you don’t cut the little window, I would say you’d only get 8.
It seems like the issue you had was bigger than that, though! Is it possible that you might have used 3 tbsp of the butter substitute and 1 tbsp of the cream cheese instead of 3 ounces and 1 ounce (or 6 tbsp and 2 tbsp)? This is something I’ve done before while making a recipe online, and I basically had the exact same results as you did – it was crumbly and kind of a mess, haha. Otherwise, I’ll have to do some more experimenting to see what could have happened! Mind telling me what brands you used? I’ll get to the bottom of this! 🙂
I had the measurements right! I think my cookie cutters were bigger than yours though. More like digestive biscuit sized than Oreo!
I used vegan Becel margarine and Tofutti cream cheese. I’m not sure if either of those brands are in the States. Maybe my margarine was too soft? I had quite a liquidy mixture going before adding in the coconut flour.
Oh, the cookie cutters being larger would make sense! Mine are just traditional linzer cutters, so they’re pretty small. We do have tofutti here! I used to buy Becel when I lived in Canada. It’s super similar to the Earth Balance I used, so I’m guessing you are right and the liquidiness contributed to things not sticking together. The fat weirdly provides structure in these! Last time I made these, my kitchen was weirdly warm and I actually ended up chilling the dough for about ten minutes so it would roll out better.
I should definitely make a note of that, because it’s so frustrating when a recipe just doesn’t work. I experimented a little last night and made these with coconut oil (soft, but not melted), and they also worked great! So I think you may have hit the nail on the head with the liquid margarine. I feel bad this didn’t turn out for you, though!
Ooh! Maybe I’ll try it with coconut oil! Or re-try with the margarine and refrigerate the dough a bit. Those are good ideas. I have Earth Balance too, so I could also try that. The thumbprint cookies I ended up with still tasted great, do don’t feel bad! I’ll give it another go.
Your recipes are honestly great! I’ve been vegan for 14 years and went keto in October and your website is my bible! Haha!
Is there a vegan cream cheese you recommend for these? These used to be my favorite holiday cookies before I went vegan, I can’t wait to make try this recipe!
Hi Becka! I usually use the one from Trader Joe’s, pretty much any vegan cream cheese will work! Haha, just be careful about flavors…I accidentally grabbed an onion and chive one first…