Made these Sugar-free Nutella Thumbprint Cookies with almond flour and my easy peasy homemade nutella. Delicious, low-carb and gluten-free treat for the holidays!
Do you love Christmas treats? If you are like me, I am sure you do. I believe even though we are on this path to a healthy lifestyle, we can still enjoy amazing desserts. That’s why this week I’m sharing with you this healthy Christmas cookie recipe, cause the last thing that I want is for you to feel deprived during the holidays.
If you’re looking for a sweet treat, you’ll love these Nutella thumbprint cookies but also check out my Low-carb Cranberry Thumbprint Cookies, Chocolate Almond Butter Cookies, or any of these 12 Healthy Gluten-free Cookies Recipes if you want a healthy but satisfying treat!
I am sure with these Sugar-free Nutella Thumbprint Cookies, you can absolutely indulge yourself and feel good about it. Trust me! And if you want, you can make them for gift giving to friends and family members because they make great edible gifts.
Let’s talk about these Sugar-free Nutella Thumbprint Cookies:
Sugar-free Homemade Nutella: I made these Sugar-free Nutella Thumbprint Cookies using my easy homemade sugar-free Nutella spread and it was delicious. This chocolate spread contains high quality fats from the hazelnuts and macadamia and it has much more good-ingredients for you than the store bought Nutella.
It’s super creamy and smooth with the addition of some coconut oil and also you’ll have the real taste of all the ingredients in there! This spread is also dairy-free. So, you don’t need to store it in the refrigerator. It can stay at room temperature for one week. But I don’t really think it will last that long because it’s super addictive. YUMMY!! If you want to make this recipe, click here to go to the tutorial.
Low-carb Almond Flour Dough: This dough is quick to make but I have to confess that the dough is a little bit crumbly. So it’s not the easiest dough to work with. It will stick when you press with your fingers together. Before you bake, shape the cookie dough into balls. And after that, make an indentation with your thumb into each ball.
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Probably the dough will crack a little when you press your thumb into the center of the cookie, but it’s not a big deal. You just have to re-seal some cracks by simply smoothing them out with your fingers. It’s also totally fine to have a few cracks. Don’t worry about it.
These are the perfect treats for some of you who still want to stick to a diet or at least try to eat healthier as much as you can during the holidays. I totally believe that these cookies will make your holidays even better since you won’t feel bad after eating them.
Ingredients to Make These Nutella Thumbprint Cookies
- Unsalted Butter — Use regular butter or vegan butter. Just be sure to bring it to room temperature so you can beat it easily in the mixer.
- Erythritol — I use erythritol but you can use any other natural sweetener you prefer for these Nutella thumbprint cookies. You can always replace erythritol for brown sugar, if you don’t wan to make it low-carb or sugar-free.
- Vanilla extract — I recommend you use real vanilla extract and not artificial extract.
- Almond flour — This is a low-carb recipe and for this reason we aren’t using purpose flour here. Instead, we are making these cookies with almond flour. It adds a mild natural sweetness to the cookies. If you want your almond flour to last longer, store it in your fridge.
- Homemade sugar-free Nutella — I prefer to use my own homemade version instead of store-bought. If you can find a sugar-free store-bought version, feel free to use that instead!
How to make Nutella thumbprint cookies
Prepare the equipment
- Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats; set aside. with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Set aside.
Make the cookie dough
- In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, the sweetener, and vanilla extract at medium speed until it becomes fluffy and well combined.
- Add ½ cup of almond flour at a time in low speed. Notice that the dough will be a little crumbly, but it will stick when pressed together.
Bake the cookies
- Scoop about 1 tablespoon of the dough and shape it into balls. Make an indentation with your thumb or the bottom of a wooden spoon in the center of each ball. Probably the dough will crack a little when you press your thumb into it. You just have to re-seal some cracks by simply smoothing them out with your fingers.
- Bake for about 12-14 minutes or until they get golden brown. The cookies will be very fragile when you remove them from the oven. So, allow them to cool down for about 10 minutes before handling them.
- Fill the center of each cookie with a 1/2 teaspoon of homemade sugar-free Nutella.
How to store These Nutella Thumbprint Cookies
In the fridge
- These Nutella thumbprint cookies last up to 5 days when stored in an airtight container in the fridge.
In the freezer
- You can freeze the raw cookie dough after you’ve rolled them into balls. Flash freeze them on a lined sheet pan and then transfer them to a freezer-safe bag and freeze them for up to 3 months. When ready to bake, pull out what you need and bring them to room temperature on a lined sheet pan, continue down the instructions list.
- Alternatively, you can flash freeze these cookies after you’ve pressed down on them and bake them directly from frozen.
- You can freeze the Nutella thumbprint cookies after they are baked. Let the Nutella thumbprint cookies cool completely before placing them in a freezer-safe airtight container and placing them in the freezer.
Recipe Tips
- To easily fill the middle of the cookies with Nutella, you can use a piping bag or a zip-top bag with the corner cut.
- For extra chocolatey goodness, you can melt some chocolate and drizzle it over top of these Nutella thumbprint cookies.
- Sprinkle with crushed nuts or sprinkles if you desire.
- As the cookies will be soft and crumbly right out of the oven, let them fully cool before transferring them.
- As these cookies do not spread a lot in the oven, you can fit more on the baking sheet.
More Healthy Cookies to Try:
- Cranberry Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies: Yummy low-carb and gluten-free treat to enjoy this holiday season. They are filled with sugar-free dried cranberries and sugar-free chocolate chips.
- Chocolate Almond Biscotti Cookies: A low-carb version of the traditional and classic Italian biscotti cookie. But it’s as good as the traditional recipe 😉
- Almond Flour Shortbread Cookies: They are made with almond flour, sugar-free chocolate, butter and natural sweetener. It’s so delicious that you won’t believe these cookies are actually healthier than the traditional shortbread cookie.
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Sugar-free Nutella Thumbprint Cookies
Ingredients
- 6 tbsp butter or vegan butter
- 1/2 cup erythritol or other natural sweetener you prefer
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 ½ cups almond flour
- ½ cup homemade sugar-free nutela.
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 350˚F. Line one large baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a standard electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the butter, the sweetener and vanilla extract at medium speed until it becomes fluffy and well combined.
- Add ½ cup of almond flour at a time. Notice that the dough will be a little crumby, but it will stick when pressed together.
- After adding all the almond flour and everything is well combined, scoop about 1 tablespoon of the dough and shape it into balls. Make an indentation with your thumb into each ball. Probably the dough will crack a little when you press your thumb into it. You just have to re-seal some cracks by simply smooth it out with your fingers. But know that it’s totally fine to have a few cracks.
- Bake for about 12-14 minutes or until they get golden brown. The cookies will be very fragile when you remove from the oven. So, allow them to cool down for about 10 minutes before handling them.
- Fill each cookie with a 1/2 teaspoon of homemade sugar-free nutella. Enjoy!
Tips
- The dough is adapted from Wholesome Yum food blog.
- You can use a piping bag or a zip-top bag with the corner cut to easily fill the middle of the cookies.
- You can sprinkle the top of the cookies with crushed nuts or sprinkles.
- Let the cookies cool before moving them as they can fall apart while fresh from the oven.
- To store: Store the cookies for up to 5 days in an airtight container in the fridge.
- To freeze: After baking, flash freeze the cookies before transferring them to a freezer-safe bag for up to 3 months.
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.
Daniela Budjanovcanin says
STOP calling this recipe sugar free. It clearly is not. The sugar free nutella recipe contains chocolate. As a type one diabetic Im sick of seeing ‘sugar free’ recipes that are clearly NOT sugar free and so therefore should NOT be labelled as such
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