I love peanut butter cookies! Hands down they are my favorite. And Nutter Butter’s are my own personal kryptonite. I don’t even buy them for the rest of the family because it would just be torture to have them in the house.
So I finally made my own low carb version of the Nutter Butter and they are really satisfying! There is a secret ingredient in these cookies – it was an experiment and I was really happy with the results. So happy in fact that I’m going to be trying it out in some bread and cake versions in the near future. You’ll never guess what it is!
Water chestnuts! Yup! I had a can of them leftover from another recipe I was working on for the e-cookbook and they were so starchy and yet low in carbs that I thought they might work in baked goods. They are very neutral flavored so they virtually disappear in the recipe, yet they added an excellent texture to the cookies. I’m super excited to experiment with these further – and as an added bonus they are pretty cheap and easy to find in any grocery store’s Asian section. So stock up people because they are going to be showing up in a lot of my low carb recipes in the next month or so!
Low Carb Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies
- Yield: 9 hearty cookies 1x
Ingredients
Scale
- For the cookies:
- 1 cup sliced water chestnuts
- 2 Tbsp butter, softened
- 1/2 cup peanut butter*
- 3 tsp stevia sweetener
- 1/4 cup flax meal
- 1/3 cup coconut flour
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- For the filling:
- 1/3 cup peanut butter*
- 3 oz cream cheese, softened
- 1 tsp stevia sweetener
Instructions
- Combine the softened butter, peanut butter, water chestnuts and stevia in a blender or food processor – blend until smooth. Scrape the mixture into a medium bowl.
- In a small bowl, combine the flax meal, coconut flour, baking powder, baking soda and pinch of salt, stirring until well mixed.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until a stiff dough forms. Chill for 1/2 an hour so it’s easier to work with.
- Roll into 18 balls and place on a greased or parchment lined cookie sheet. Press down with a fork to make the traditional cross hatch designs. Bake in a preheated 375 degree (F) oven for 15 minutes. Remove and cool.
- To make the filling: blend your softened cream cheese and stevia until fluffy. Add your room temperature peanut butter* and blend until fully combined.
- To assemble the cookies: Spread the filling mixture onto 9 of the cookie halves, then press the remaining 9 cookie halves onto the top.
Notes
*Next time I would make these with almond butter because it lessens the net carbs by almost 20 grams in the total recipe. So if you are really strict with your carbs or are just avoiding legumes, you can substitute equal amounts of almond butter (or any nut butter of your choice) for the peanut butter.
**if you use almond butter in place of peanut butter it’s only 3g net carbs per assembled sandwich cookie.
Approximate nutrition info per single cookie (without filling):
54 calories, 4g fat, 1.4g net carbs, 2g protein
- Category: Dessert
- Cuisine: Cookie sandwiches
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 sandwich
- Calories: 221
- Fat: 19g
- Carbohydrates: 5g net
- Protein: 7g
iamse7en says
I was surprised I could hardly taste the water chestnuts. That being said, I found these a little dry with not a whole lot of taste. A spoonful of peanut or almond butter on its own tastes better vs all this work. Love your other recipes but wasn’t a fan of this. 2/5
iamse7en says
Haha, I’m having a change of heart. I’ve been eating them more today and like them now. I had my first sandwich too soon out of the oven. Cookies were a bit dry andthadn’t fully settled. After they sat out a bit, I put them in the fridge. I’ve been eating them cold, and they’re chewy and cold. Much better! Thanks.
Jeanine says
I know this is a bit late, but I was curious about the water chestnuts. Since they are the main source of carbs in these cookies, do you know how these would turn out if I cut them? Is there anything I can sub them for – maybe boiled radishes? I was just trying to find a way to make these lower carb, and if I can cut 3 cards out of the net for a whole sandwich, then I could enjoy more than one ;)
Lauren says
Is ground flaxseed the same thing as flax meal? Dying to try these tonight…I have everything except flax meal. but I do have ground flaxseed!
Mellissa Sevigny says
Yes the ground flaxseed will work!
Julie says
Any thoughts on a cream cheese sub for the frosting? My little man is dairy free. Thanks! Can’t wait to try them!
Mellissa Sevigny says
The cookies are great on their own even without the filling Julie!
Rebekah says
Would the nutrition info change much if I used PB2 instead of peanut butter?
Mellissa Sevigny says
Hi Rebekah, I don’t know what PB2 is, nor do I know the nutrition info. You’ll have to find the nutrition info for regular pb (if you don’t have any you can use calorie king and search it), subtract it from the recipe, then add the nutrition info for the PB2 and divide by serving size to find out what the difference is.
Dawn says
Hi Mellissa! Thank you so much for working up this recipe! Water chestnuts is a wonderful idea!I realized while I was baking the cookies I omitted butter entirely :( oops… (that’s normally my favorite part too!! :s ) they still turned out really moist and flavorful though! :)
I shared my cooking adventure of this recipe here: http://lostsentiments.blogspot.com/2013/04/low-carb-nutter-butter-cookie-sammiches.html and shared your links throughout the post as well.
Thank you! Wonderful recipe! Happy baking! ~Dawn
MMC says
Do you drain the water chestnuts?
Mellissa Sevigny says
Yes!!!
My name is Christina. says
When you use Stevia are you using liquid or granulated?
Mellissa Sevigny says
I used the granulated but you could also use splenda or a xylitol mix.