My Keto Recipes: Kookies

My Keto Recipes: Kookies

Sitting in the corner of our small kitchen, on the floor, by the oven, watching cookies rising while getting baked, and thinking… what this post should really be about. Ketogenic diet? Ketosis? Low carb food? Nope. Nope nope nope.

I do want to tell you more about the ketogenic diet and all related to it, but I do not yet feel like “being the one to tell you”. But since I am going to write about a recipe that I made because of following that diet, let me please just tell you some basic information about it. I will use the Keto Clarity book written by Jimmy Moore and Dr Eric Westman as my source of information.

“Ketosis is a metabolic state that happens when one consumes very low-carb, moderate protein and high-fat diet that causes one’s body to switch from using glucose as its primary source fuel to running on ketones. Ketones are produced when the body burns fat, and they’re primarily used as an alternative fuel source when glucose isn’t available.” So, simply – through following the ketogenic diet, your body turns from a sugar burner to a fat-burner 😉

And while ketogenic diet is often associated with many negatives and as an “extreme diet”, I would like you to consider some of the (many!) positives that it actually has… “hunger and appetite control, stabilized blood sugar and restored insulin sensitivity, improved immune system, slowed ageing, improvements in blood chemistry, better and faster recovery from exercise, decreased anxiety and mood swings…” I could continue, but I do not want to sound like I am persuading you to follow any diet, because that’s not my aim. I only want you to understand better why I chose to eat ketogenic – at least for some time.

I have to admit that I tried following the same diet once already, a year ago, and I would say that I rather failed. Why?

I struggled with several problems. First of all: so much fat! I just couldn’t accept that I had to eat that much of it! Come on, we all learnt that one should not eat a lot of fat and suddenly, I am eating salmon with cream sauce, topped with extra butter!

There was another problem connected to eating high-fat food: it’s very caloric, therefore the portions of food are naturally smaller. But I wanted to eat proper meals! I wanted to have a full plate, to spend some time at the table, to enjoy my meals!

In order to make my meals “bigger”, I started making salads – meaning that I was simply eating too much of vegetable which led into a higher intake of carbs and therefore it was kicking me out of ketosis, the state when a body uses fat as it’s fuel, not glucose.

The result of my last year keto-trial was that I wasn’t able to follow the diet properly and therefore couldn’t benefit from it either – I was lacking energy, I was hungry and leaving the diet exhausted and persuaded that I won’t try it ever again.

But as months passed, I decided that I actually do want to try it again.

One big reason was to fast for a few days but besides, I simply like the idea that we, people, store fat for a purpose – as our energy reservoir. I would lie if I said that I wouldn’t like to lose some extra weight too, but honestly, it’s not the main focus, not for now at least. It’s rather about my attitude to food, to how our bodies work and last but not least, it’s a cool challenge for both my mind and my baking skills!

Yes, baking! If you do, or ever tried to, follow keto diet yourself then you know how it feels to miss bread, baked goods, something crunchy!

Both my boyfriend and me, we are used to eating bread rolls with butter, some cheese, salami – I think we actually love it 😀 Moreover, having a sandwich for lunch at work is simply – simple.

Me, I do also like to have some sweet treats and little snacks available. One could say “come on, eat some almonds!” but, you know, that’s not always satisfying.

Since I am so much into baking, I decided that if I am about to try eating ketogenic again, I have to find a way to eat what we like, not only what we can. Meaning, I am not going to struggle and miss what I like again. I am only going to make it without carbs and with a lot of fat.

My boyfriend could tell you some funny stories about my keto-baking failures, but even though not all trials were successful, I managed to create and adjust some recipes so that now we can enjoy bread rolls, cookies or tortillas again!

And because I am so much in love with them, I am now going to introduce you my super duper awesome keto cookies made with almond and coconut flour. They are really delicious, easy to make but also – filling!

I spent quite some time adjusting the amount of various ingredients ending up with what you can find below. If you want to substitute more of the almond by coconut flour, please do remember that coconut flour absorbs more liquids. For 1 part of almond flour use just 1/4 of that amount of coconut flour.

Kookies – the keto cookies

INGREDIENTS:

120g melted butter

16g heavy cream

2 eggs

120g Sukrin (erythritol sugar substitute)

100g coconut flour

150g almond flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

zest of 1/2 lemon

1/4 tsp vanilla

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat oven to 180°C, prepare a baking sheet lined with baking paper.

In a microwave oven, melt the butter.

In a bowl, mix both flours, baking powder, vanilla, lemon zest and Sukrin. Then add melted butter, cream and eggs, stir to combine.

Put a plastic foil over the dough and place it into the fridge, let it rest for an hour.

When the dough is cold, use a spoon and hands to form small dough balls of the approximately same size (I use 35g of dough per cookie).

Place the dough balls on a baking sheet lined with baking paper and then, by spoon or hand, flatten them. Be careful not to place too many cookies on one tray, I use two trays to bake all.

Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until the cookies turn light brown.

If you want the cookies to be more crunchy, make them flatter – but keep an eye on them when baking, they will be done faster! 🙂