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When you first start keto, you might feel like you have to say no to dessert forever. But that’s not the case! As long as you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and whip up a keto dessert recipe for yourself, it’s totally possible to indulge in a sweet treat without spiking your blood sugar and sending yourself out of ketosis. We’ve rounded up our 18 favorite keto desserts for fall and winter. Each one features delicious and decadent flavors and is totally keto compliant.
Whether you’re looking for an easy keto dessert, or something impressive to show off at a dinner party, we’ve got you covered. So, stock up on nut flours, alternative sweeteners, your favorite kind of dark chocolate, and, of course, plenty of butter. Who’s ready for dessert?
Whether you’re a master baker or a novice in the kitchen, tackling a keto dessert recipe will probably require you to familiarize yourself with new ingredients. Here’s a list of some of the healthy, low-carb ingredients you’re likely to encounter.
Do you know how hard it was to whittle this list down to 18? So hard. So, so, hard. The finalized list features familiar fall and winter flavors, like pumpkin, maple, orange, and plenty of warming spices. We also included perennial favorites, like chocolate, peanut butter, nutella, and coconut. Plus, some unexpected delights, like pistachio and bacon! There’s sure to be something here to appeal to everyone’s palate.
Kyndra Holley, author of multiple best-selling cookbooks including Craveable Keto, created this low-carb pumpkin cheesecake mousse recipe for her popular recipe site Peace, Love, and Low Carb. Inspired by her love of fall flavors, Holley married the flavor of pumpkin pie with the creaminess of cheesecake and the fluffy, whipped texture of mousse. The result is sure to become a fall favorite in many households. “I like to top mine with a little fresh low carb whipped cream,” Holley writes, “To make the low-carb whipped cream, I just whipped heavy cream, vanilla extract and natural low-carb sweetener together until stiff peaks formed. Then put it into a pastry bag and you are good to go.”
Get the recipe here.
Given how totally decadent these maple pecan bars taste, it’s hard to believe they’re also grain-free, low-carb, paleo- and keto-friendly. Angela Roberts, a full-time food blogger and writer, says the picture she shared of these bars went “absolutely nuts” on Instagram and led to more recipe requests than anything else she’s ever shared. The only tricky part, Roberts explains, is making the almond flour crust. “It doesn’t look like it’s going to work but once you pre-bake it, and you must pre-bake it, it’s really good.” Also, note that she suggests refrigerating the bars for at least six hours before slicing them.
Get the recipe here.
For Tasha Metcalf, who runs KetoGasm, a website dedicated to living a body-positive ketogenic lifestyle, the philosophy “treat treats as treats” is foundational. “If I want a treat, I make it at home and take full control of the ingredients and portion sizes,” Metcalf writes. “I also tend to make it an elaborate enough process that it’s not practical to do all the time, but still makes for a fun project.” So, these keto chocolate pots de créme are definitely special occasion food. They take a bit of time and effort to pull together, but luxurious flavor and texture are well worth it.
Get the recipe here.
These Zesty Orange Keto Cake Balls are saturated with sweet orange flavor and contain absolutely no sugar at all. They take just minutes to make and look pretty enough to be featured in a holiday dessert spread. Emily, who shares wholesome dessert recipes on her site Pretty Pies, says her orange keto cake balls recipe magically transforms simple, healthy ingredients into “a delectable treat your tastebuds will love, and your body will too!” They’re full of protein, fiber, healthy fats, and, of course, no added sugar.
Get the recipe here.
These chocolate-coated peanut butter cookies look good enough to make anyone’s mouth water, even those who haven’t sworn off conventional, carb-heavy desserts. This simple recipe, shared by Delish.com senior food editor Lauren Miyashiro, calls for only seven ingredients and takes all of 5 minutes to make (plus 10 minutes for the chocolate to set). If you’re planning to share them, you may want to make two batches—they’re crazy tempting!
Get the recipe here.
Catherine Clark posts her delicious, unconventional recipes on her blog, Bijoux & Bits. Thanks to her background in design, the treats she creates look as good as they taste! For her pistachio toffee cups, she notes that you can chop the nuts fine or leave them chunky for a little crunch, whichever you prefer. Oh, and the toffee center is basically the microwave version of a sweet brown butter sauce. “If you’ve ever made brown butter, you know that distinctive nutty smell that happens,” she writes. “When you heat it up (slowly, carefully!), it’ll come out of the microwave liquid-y, but will thicken up so fast.” So while these are quick and easy to make, you will need to work efficiently once you’ve stirred the filling together. As your reward, you’ll get a totally delicious batch of keto fat bombs.
Get the recipe here.
If the name alone isn’t enough to get you drooling over these coconut mocha donuts, then the nutrition facts will. A serving of a single donut contains just 161 calories, with 14 grams of fat, 5 grams of protein, 2 grams of net carbs, and 1 gram of sugar. Recipe creator Shasta Walton, who shares her advice on living a keto lifestyle on her blog Keto Size Me, says that these delicious donuts are perfect for days when you want a treat, but don’t have much wiggle room with your fat and protein macros.
Get the recipe here.
Urvashi Pitre, who shares low-carb recipes at Two Sleevers, says this recipe yields beautifully spiced cookies with perfect texture and incomparable taste. Plus, they come together with just 10 minutes of prep. They’re gluten-free, low-carb, and keto-friendly, and Pitre notes that if you substitute coconut oil for the butter, they’re also paleo.
Get the recipe here.
You only need three ingredients and 30 minutes to make this incredible chocolate bark. Jennifer Banz, who specializes in easy low-carb recipes that will appeal to non-Keto eaters, too, isn’t a big fan of baking. “I think it’s the measuring of powdery ingredients that turns me off,” she writes. “They make such a mess!” So when she says she kept this recipe simple, you can trust her. She even came up with a hack to make tempering chocolate easier: she uses a microwave! “All you do is pour your chocolate into a microwave safe bowl, put it in the microwave for 30 seconds, stir, do another 30 seconds, stir again,” she writes.”You might have to do one last round of 15 seconds. You want to make sure you have a little bit of unmelted chocolate chips leftover when you pull it out of the microwave. Then stir one last time and it should all be melted.”
Get the recipe here.
Megha Barot, who spreads her love for the ketogenic diet via KetoConnect, the site she founded with her husband, says this is her favorite keto mug cake of all time. “When it comes down to what I look for in a solid mug cake, I take into consideration the texture, flavor, and moistness of the cake,” Megha writes. “This easy cinnamon mug cake has a dense yet fluffy texture and is full of cinnamon, fall-time flavor.”
Since it takes just three minutes from mixing the ingredients to taking your first bite, this is the perfect everyday keto dessert. All you need is a microwave-safe mug and some simple ingredients.
Get the recipe here.
These oh-so-simple and oh-so-delicious coconut macaroons are not only keto-friendly, but also compliant with both the paleo and primal diets. Dominic, who runs the keto recipe site No Bun Please, likes to make these using a small amount of honey, but notes that you can also keep the carb count even lower by using stevia or erythritol instead.
Get the recipe here.
Carolyn, the writer and recipe developer behind All Day I Dream About Food, adopted a low-carb diet after developing gestational diabetes during her third pregnancy. “When the diabetes decided to stick around,” she writes. She now shares her ingenious adaptations of high-carb recipes that retain all the flavor you love.
She created her decadent homemade low-carb Nutella truffle recipe as an homage to her food blogging friends. “Nutella is adored in the food blogging world, so what better way to toast my fellow bloggers. Of course, I can’t eat real Nutella, but I do make my own low-carb version and it is delicious.”
Get the recipe here.
When Idriss, the lead writer and recipe developer at Broke Foodies, a recipe site he created with his wife Léa, committed to keto, one of his major goals was to make desserts “that taste exactly like the real deal.”
And this carrot cake recipe is a testament to his success! “I was honestly mind-blown by the fact that this dessert was completely flour-free. The cake was very fluffy, very light and tasted exactly like a classic carrot cake.”
Better still, his keto carrot cake recipe takes a mere 15 to 20 minutes to make, less than half the time you’d spend making a traditional cake.
Get the recipe here.
The ingredient that makes these cacao butter keto blondies so incredibly delicious is right there in the name—cacao butter. This creamy, unrefined butter has a sweet and mild flavor that takes this keto dessert recipe to the next level. “I’d bake this dish again and again if only the cacao butter were as affordable as dairy butter,” writes Tisa F, the primary recipe creator at My Sweet Keto. “If there ever comes the time when having too much money is an issue, instead of buying a yacht, I’ll get myself a ton of cacao butter.”
Tisa has tried a number of variations on this recipe. She described the version we’re sharing with you as “juicy in the middle and crispy on the outside.”
Get the recipe here.
If you’ve ever wished that peanut butter cups could be creamier, this is the recipe for you! Sam, who posts her simple low-carb recipes designed to help you jump-start or stick to a ketogenic lifestyle at Hey Keto Mama, says this six-ingredient recipe “will have you running back for more!” It’s low-carb, high-fat, and no-bake—oh, and so, so yummy.
Get the recipe here.
These simple, wholesome keto cookies showcase one of the best flavor pairings out there: chocolate and sea salt. Sara Nelson uses only whole, unprocessed ingredients to make her ketogenic recipes. These chocolate sea salt cookies contain only 1.6 grams of carbs per serving, plus they’re free of gluten, grains, dairy, soy, and refined sugar! The only sweetener needed is net-carb-free monk fruit.
Get the recipe here.
Mira, who shares keto-friendly recipes on her blog My PCOS Kitchen, writes that when she shared these with her coworkers, she didn’t mention that rather than using flour and sugar, she made these keto brownies with avocado, almond flour, and unsweetened chocolate chips. “After everyone finished theirs, I told them what I had put in them and they were all surprised!” she writes. “They didn’t know you could bake with avocado and that brownies could be sugar-free.” You’ll definitely want to try her brownies—proven to be every bit as good as the “real” thing!
Get the recipe here.
This easy-to-make keto buttercream frosting tastes good enough to eat all on its own. Or, of course, you could use it to top one of the other recipes on this list (imagine it on Megha Barot’s Cinnamon Mug Cake…).
Best of all, this fabulously creamy frosting, created by cookbook author and freelance recipe creator Anne Aobadia for Diet Doctor, can be adapted in so many ways. “Add flavor to the cream with anything you want,” Aobadia writes. “cocoa powder, cardamom, ground coffee, orange or lime zest.”
Get the recipe here.
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I am new to keto, and your blog is really helpful. I’m preparing to start my weekly keto meal plan. I would love to add to this recipes to my weekly keto meal plan. And good thing I can still enjoy dessert while on keto diet. Now I know what to put in my shopping cart. I am excited, NO cheating, i promise!! 😉
Hi Josefine! That’s great. Good luck on your fitness journey. 🙂