The hardest thing about going keto was giving up sweets. Truth be told, I wasn’t a big meat-eater to begin with, and liked baked goods and candy way too much. I mean, they’re probably why I had to go on keto in the first place, right?

The one main benefit of this diet is that has forced me to be a little more creative in the kitchen, and learning how to make substitutions and adaptations. I’m not quite sure where I found this recipe, but it’s super-duper easy.

You will need:

1 large egg

1 cup peanut butter (I just used Jif even though it’s a little carbier than natural peanut butter)

1 cup Splenda

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

And for the pictured batch, I added one tablespoon of cocoa powder, just to see what would happen. 🙂

(Spoiler: It turn out pretty well. Not much of a chocolate taste to it. Don’t add too much or it’ll change the consistency of the dough.)

All you really need to do is mix the ingredients until they have a dough-like consistency.

Ball them up. I went with balls about the width of a quarter. Arrange them on a pan covered with parchment paper. If you don’t have parchment paper, an ungreased cookie sheet would work, but everything is easier with parchment paper.

And then go ahead and make those signature peanut-butter-cookie fork marks by pressing the fork in twice, rotating it 90 degrees between presses. I’m pretty sure they don’t taste the same without them.

12 minutes at 350 should do it. Luckily they don’t spread at all, so as long as they’re not touching, you’re golden. You do, however, want to let the finished product sit and cool a while. There’s no flour as a binder, so they do tend to crumble pretty easily. I haven’t tried them with (zero-carb almond) milk yet, though.

Yum. If you’re diabetic or can’t have gluten or dairy, these also work – no wheat products, and only 3.3 net carbs per cookie.