Easy Keto Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies are full of vibrant berry flavor and taste rich and buttery. This simple vegan sugar-free cookie recipe is perfect for holiday gifts or cookie exchanges! Make a batch for Christmas!
Favorite Christmas cookie reveal?
You’re looking at it!
While I’m a major fan of gooey Giant Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookies for every day living, raspberry thumbprint cookies have always been a holiday favorite.
For some reason, I only make them around Christmas, which makes them even more special to me.
A number of years ago, I shared my Paleo Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies and Cardamom Almond Flour Paleo Thumbprint Cookies but am now returning with a keto version.
While I’m not keto, there are several folks in my family who eat sugar-free to try to keep blood sugar under control, plus I’ve got no qualms about enjoying a sugar-free treat from time to time.
The buttery shortbread cookie with the chewy jam in the center just explodes with flavor in your mouth!
Plus, they are so easy to customize depending on your sweetener preference and jam preference.
Let’s dive right into the ingredients.
Keto Thumbprint Cookies Ingredients:
Almond Flour: Keeping these cookies grain-free and low-carb, we use almond flour. Almond flour has a rich, naturally sweet, nutty flavor that just makes any baked good dreamy! I use Bob’s Red Mill’s Finely Ground Almond Flour.
Over the years, I’ve learned different brands of almond flour absorb different amounts of liquid so you may need to adjust the amount of melted coconut oil (or butter) you use depending on the brand of almond flour. The end goal is to obtain a dough that closely resembles the consistency of regular cookie dough, so you’ll want to add oil until that happens if the dough is crumbly.
I haven’t tested the recipe using any other type of flour so proceed with caution. Coconut flour will not work as a direct replacement.
Coconut Oil or Butter: The fat portion of the recipe. Melted coconut oil (or melted butter if you aren’t dairy free) is used to bring the dough together.
Sugar-Free Sweetener: Used to sweeten the cookies! One of the beauties of these cookies is they aren’t designed to be crazy sweet so we don’t need very much sweetener. In fact, the jam acts as the majority of the sweetness, so choose your jam or preserves wisely with that in mind.
My top three favorite sugar-free sweeteners are Lakanto Monkfruit Sweetener, Swerve, and Truvia.
Vanilla Extract & Almond Extract: Adding depth of flavor to the cookies, both vanilla and almond extract are amazing! But don’t worry if you don’t keep them on hand – you can omit one or both of them and still achieve a delicious cookie. Just note some richness will be lost without them.
Baking Soda & Sea Salt: Baking soda is used to keep the cookies held together. Because we don’t use eggs in this recipe, the baking soda is paramount! Double check to be sure it isn’t expired before using it. The sea salt brings out all the flavors in the cookies so be sure to add it.
Sugar-Free Raspberry Jam or jam/preserves of choice: While I’m obsessed with raspberry jam, you can truly use any store-bought or homemade jam or preserves you like (assuming it has that thick, jam-like consistency).
In this sense, you can mix and match flavors, using any amount of jams or preserves to create a choose your own adventure sort of situation.
Note that you can make many changes to the ingredients here – just consult the Recipe Adaptations section below to see your options.
Let’s bake them already!
How to Make Keto Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies:
Add all of the ingredients to a stand mixer (or use a mixing bowl and electric hand mixer) and beat until combined and a thick dough forms.
Note: if the dough appears dry or crumbly and doesn’t easily come together, add more melted coconut oil or butter until a dough forms easily (do this 1 to 2 tablespoons at a time).
Refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour.
When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Roll the dough into a ball, then press the center with your thumb to make an indentation. Place on the cookie sheet.
Repeat for remaining cookie dough, placing them at least 2 inches apart.
Note that the dough will try to crack and come apart while you’re pressing your thumb in it. Simply push the dough back together to seal the cracks. It takes a little finagling, but it works, I promise!
Fill the cookies with ½ teaspoon of sugar-free raspberry jam (or preserves of choice) each.
Bake in the oven for 8 to 12 minutes, or until cookies are golden-brown around the edges.
While the cookies are baking, you can whip up the glaze if you’d like. Simply stir the sugar-free confectioners sweetener and water together in a bowl or measuring cup until it’s well-combined and reaches your desired thickness.
If desired, fill the cookies with additional raspberry preserves (I do this) and drizzle the simple optional glaze over the cookies.
Serve and enjoy!
Recipe Adaptations:
Use either melted butter or coconut oil. If you use coconut oil, the thumbprints will be vegan.
Prefer using regular sugar instead of sugar-free sweetener? Go ahead and make the switch. You can use regular brown sugar, granulated cane sugar, maple sugar or coconut sugar. Note that coconut sugar doesn’t taste as sweet as regular cane sugar so bear that in mind.
If you prefer a different flavor of jam or preserves other than raspberry, choose what you love!
I’ve made thumbprints using leftover cranberry sauce from Thanksgiving and they turn out marvelously!
Options for making your own homemade jam? Try my Raspberry Chia Jam or my Strawberry Chia Seed Jam. You can make either of these sugar-free by replacing the pure maple syrup with sugar-free granulated sweetener.
If you’re looking for more holiday cookie recipes that are low-carb, check out my Keto Shortbread Cookies, Keto Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, Keto Pecan Snowball Cookies, Keto Peanut Butter Chocolate Pecan Turtles and Keto Lemon Cookies.
Hope you enjoy these berry buttery bites of joy as much as I do!
If you make these keto raspberry thumbprint cookies, feel free to snap a photo and share it on Instagram, tagging me @The.Roasted.Root!
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups finely ground almond flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- 12 Tbsp coconut oil or unsalted butter, melted*
- 3 Tbsp sugar-free granulated sweetener**
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, optional
- Sugar-free raspberry jam***
Optional Drizzle:
- 1 cup sugar-free powdered sugar****
- 1 to 2 Tbsp water, as needed
Instructions
- Add all of the ingredients to a stand mixer (or use a mixing bowl and electric hand mixer) and beat until combined and a thick dough forms. Note: if the dough appears dry or crumbly and doesn’t easily come together, add more melted coconut oil or butter until a dough forms easily (do this 1 to 2 tablespoons at a time).
- Refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour.
- When you're ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Roll a small ball of cookie dough in your palms, and gently press the center with your thumb. Place on a cookie sheet and repeat for the remaining dough, placing them at least 2 inches apart.
- Fill the cookies with 1/2 teaspoon of sugar-free raspberry jam (or preserves of choice) each.
- Bake in the oven for 8 to 12 minutes, or until cookies are golden-brown around the edges. Allow the cookies to cool completely before touching them, as they will crumble if moved when they're still warm.
- While the cookies are baking, you can whip up the glaze. Stir the sugar-free confectioners sweetener and water together in a bowl or measuring cup until it’s well-combined and reaches your desired thickness.
- Once the cookies are out of the oven and have cooled, you can fill them with additional raspberry preserves (I do this) and drizzle the optional glaze over the cookies.
- Serve and enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Charlene
Wednesday 13th of December 2023
Made this recipe and it didn’t turn out . They spread flat like a pancake. I used the proper amounts of everything. Then when I reread it . I used 12 Tbsp of coconut oil , but it wasn’t really melted . I didn’t realize it had to be . Do you think that’s what happened as to why they went flat?
Julia
Wednesday 13th of December 2023
Hi Charlene! A couple of questions - did you add the baking soda? Did you refrigerate the dough for at least one hour? The fact that the coconut oil wasn't melted could play a role in the cookies turning out flat because coconut oil measures slightly differently when it's melted versus solid. More likely, if you didn't add the baking soda or chill the dough these two factors could cause the cookies to flatten out. Let me know and I can help troubleshoot from there!
shawn keller
Monday 13th of December 2021
Made these and followed the recipe exactly as stated, but the cookies crumble so much that they had to be eaten with a fork. Not sure what went wrong. Great taste though.
Julia
Monday 13th of December 2021
Hi Shawn!
Sounds like they needed more melted butter. Do you remember what brand of almond flour you used? xo