If you’re trying to lose weight on the keto diet, dessert can be one of the most difficult food groups to sacrifice. You can try to replace your dessert with store-bought health bars, but nothing quite replaces the taste of homemade baked goods. Fortunately, if you find keto-friendly ingredients like keto friendly chocolate chips, you can still make your favorite treats—for yourself and for any friends and family members who are trying to eat low-carb. Read on to discover delicious desserts and baking ingredients that are absolutely keto-friendly! And who knows—by the time you’ve successfully finished your keto diet (and you definitely will), you may even prefer the taste of these low-carb and low-sugar options to your usual treats.
Keto-Friendly Sweeteners
How do you find a sugar alternative when you need to avoid sugar altogether on the keto diet? While you should definitely avoid white sugar, brown sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and other natural sweeteners like fruit juice that have the tendency to raise blood sugar levels, sweeteners like Stevia in the Raw and Splenda are much less harmful. Splenda is made of sucralose, a no-calorie sweetener, while stevia is made of a plant that is naturally sweeter than sugar with low carbs. With the help of natural sweeteners, you can still make cookies, brownies, and cupcakes that are healthier for everyone—even older relatives who love sweet desserts.
Keto Friendly Chocolate Chips
These keto friendly chocolate chips rely on the same natural sweetener as Stevia in the Raw. Stevia has no carbohydrates, making it suitable for anyone who is on the keto diet or has diabetes. Stevia can be added to both drinks and food in powder or liquid form. These keto friendly chocolate chips use stevia as well as other natural ingredients like chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, and salt. Some keto-friendly desserts have an aftertaste because of artificial sweeteners, but these keto friendly chocolate chips have just the right amount of sweetness with no aftertaste. These are vegan with just one gram of sugar and one gram of carbs per bag. That means you can make your chocolate chip cookies, cakes, and pies and eat them too.
Keto-Friendly Milk
If you need a bit of milk or cream to add to your recipe, you’re in luck. There are plenty of healthy, keto-friendly alternatives to cow’s milk. Did you know that 30 to 50 million Americans are lactose intolerant? With more and more people discovering lactose intolerance and milk sensitivities, it may be best to err on the safe side and use a milk alternative in your recipes. However, since you should be eating only twenty-five to thirty carbs a day on keto, you will probably want to avoid a few other milk alternatives, like oat milk, rice milk, and goat’s milk that have natural sugars or are high in carbs. Fortunately, milk made from almonds, coconuts, macadamia nuts, soy, and cashews are all low in carbs and keto-friendly. That means you can replicate your favorite sweet coffee and tea drinks at home using keto-friendly ingredients, stevia, and milk alternatives.
Keto-Friendly Candy
But what about your favorite brand name candies, like Hershey’s and Reese’s? Unless you’re a chocolatier, it’s going to be tough to replicate those at home. Fortunately, you can find peanut butter cups, white chocolate, and milk chocolate bars that are keto-friendly. These chocolate bars use cocoa butter, salt, chocolate liquor, oats, nuts, and peanut butter to provide you with a tasty treat that’s low in carbs and sugar. Each of these candy bars contains only about five grams of sugar.
Low Carb Fruits
While the natural sugars in fruits typically make them high in carbs and not friendly for keto diets, there are a few low-carb fruits that you can bake into your best fruit bars and pies. A serving of strawberries contains about 12 carbs, lemons contain five carbs each, and raspberries and peaches are also relatively low in carbs. That means you can whip up some lemon meringue or strawberry lemon blondies while still adhering to your diet.
Keto-Friendly Flour
Shockingly, flour has a lot of carbohydrates. It’s surprising, isn’t it? It’s usually used as an additive in baking and has almost no taste, so it doesn’t seem right that it would have carbs. While flour is cholesterol-free, sugar-free, and sodium-free, one cup of regular flour can have almost 100 carbs! Most wheat flour alternatives contain carbs too. If you’re looking for a flour alternative, try out almond flour, coconut flour, chia flour, or oat flour. Most of these alternatives still have some carbs but they’re much healthier—and flours made of ingredients like almonds and coconut can accentuate those sweet flavors in desserts.
Sugar-Free Maple Syrup
If you’re on the keto diet, you might be missing your favorite breakfast foods. Delicacies like pancakes and waffles are sweeter than most desserts and completely off-limits for keto. You probably have fruit and yogurt restrictions, too. If you’re getting tired of eating eggs and bacon every morning, you might want to try out some sugar-free maple syrup. This syrup can be used on top of pancakes and waffles and as a sugar alternative in baked goods. It uses stevia instead of regular sugar and contains only two grams of sugar per two tablespoons. So if you do want to bust out your dusty waffle maker and whip up a batch of homemade waffles using keto-friendly ingredients and flour alternatives, you’ll have the perfect maple syrup to top it off.
