With a buttery, flaky almond flour shortcrust pastry and a low carb mincemeat filling, these Keto mince pies are the essence of a proper low carb Christmas!
My whole family LOVES mince pies. Especially my daughter goes crazy for them. As soon as they appear in the shops, she'll use her pocket money to buy a pack here and there, trying to figure out which one is the best.
I get it. Mince pies do taste great. The combination of the sticky dried fruit and the Christmas spices in the mincemeat and the buttery, flaky shortcrust pastry is quite irresistible.
And that's exactly the reason why I decided to make my own sugar free mince pies. It's actually quite simple, they taste delicious and are so much healthier!
Carbs in Mince Pies
The amount of sugar and carbs a supermarket mince pie contains is eye-watering. One Waitrose Christmas Mince pie comes in at 36 grams of net carbs and 16 grams of sugar (that's equivalent to 4 teaspoons of table sugar)!
My kids buy what they want with their pocket money, but I did point out the different sugars in the last lot of mince pies she schlepped home. On top of the apple puree and the sultanas, raisins and currants which contain plenty of fructose all on their own, there was added sugar, glucose syrup and glucose-fructose syrup.
Companies like to use different types of sugar so they don't have to list it as the main ingredient. If you buy packaged ingredients it's always worth reading the label! (Or, even better, don't buy packaged ingredients.)
Ingredients
How can you follow a keto diet or low carb diet AND enjoy mince pies? After all, they are one of the essential Christmas recipes, alongside sugar free Christmas pudding, keto fruit cake and low carb panettone.
When you keto-fy a recipe, you often need to come up with creative substitutions. Meaning, my keto mince pies do not EXACTLY taste like regular ones. They are a touch fruitier.
But they contain all the same spices and textures we love about mince pies.
Check out the ingredients in the image below:
Let's get into the nitty- gritty. What's the secret ingredient of these diabetic mince pies? Dried fruit such as raisins or sultanas contain WAY too much sugar to make it into a keto dessert, whether it's December, Christmas or not.
Easy - I replaced them with homemade sugar free dried cranberries, which are sweetened with allulose. They are super juicy and at 1.4g net carbs per tablespoon a fraction of sugary mincemeat!
Instructions
This section contains step-by-step instructions and photos that show how to make this recipe. See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities
Fruit Mince Filling
STEP 1
Place all filling ingredients except the brandy and almonds in a saucepan. Simmer on a low heat until quite thick but with just a little moisture left.
STEP 2
Option to press with a fork if you want less chunky apple.
Stir through almonds and optional brandy and allow to cool.
Shortcrust Pastry
STEP 3
In food processor, pulse all the dry ingredients until combined. Add the butter chunks and cream cheese and blend again. Add the egg and blend until a smooth dough forms.
STEP 4
Shape the shortcrust pastry into a ball and wrap in cling film. Chill in the freezer.
STEP 5
Roll the dough between two sheets of baking paper until 3 - 4 mm thick. Use a 7.5 cm cutter to cut out bases...
STEP 6
.... and then stars.
Assembly
STEP 7
Now you assemble the mince pies! Grease a shallow muffin baking tray with butter and add a base. Add the mincemeat...
STEP 8
... and then your pastry lid! Press to seal slightly and brush with egg wash. And off into the oven they go, for about 18 minutes.
Katrin's Top Tips
If the dough becomes too warm to cut out at any point, simply place it back in the freezer for 5 - 10 minutes to firm up.
Don't attempt to remove your lovely sugar free Christmas mince pies from baking tray until they are fully cooled! They are fragile while hot and firm up as they cool.
Serve With
These mince pies are perfect all on their own dusted with powdered sweetener.
But to take it up a notch, why not serve them with sugar free custard or low carb vanilla ice cream?
Lovers of a classic mince pie experience may enjoy eating them with brandy butter (that's hard sauce in the US). For this, add brandy to extra thick cream and sweeten to your liking.
Or serve them like me with a dollop of sugar free whipped cream!
Recipe FAQs
I used golden erythritol for the filling because I like the caramel flavour. Any 1:1 sugar substitute will work though. You could use monk fruit, xylitol or allulose.
Several readers have told me they used either fresh or frozen cranberries instead of the homemade dried ones. You'll have to increase the sweetener to taste and also the cooking time to achieve the same filling consistency.
I wanted to stay close to the original recipe - that's why I used apple in the filling. However, to reduce this recipe from 6g to 4.4g net carbs per mince pie, swap the apple out with zucchini.
Use 1 ¼ cups / 150g chopped zucchini (peel and core them before chopping.) Also, increase the sweetener to taste as you're now missing the natural sweetness of the apple.
Use the coconut flour pie base of this Strawberry Mascarpone Tart. It works well and is sturdy! Another nut free option is to substitute the almond flour with a mix of sunflower seed flour and sesame seed flour.
Storage
I stored my mince pies in a closed container in the fridge for 3 days and reheated them in the microwave before eating.
They are probably fine for 1-2 days at room temperature as well.
I did not try to freeze them, but it should work (up to 3 months). You may want to reheat them in the oven to ensure the shortcrust stays nice and crisp.
And just in case you're wondering - my daughter gave these healthy mince pies the thumbs up!
Related Recipes
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Recipe
Sugar Free Keto Mince Pies
Ingredients
Pastry
- 1 cup / 100g almond flour 100g
- ¼ cup / 30g coconut flour 30g
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon xanthan gum
- Pinch of salt
- ⅔ stick / 70g butter cold
- 2 tbsp / 30g cream cheese
- 1 large egg + egg wash
Filling
- 1 small apple 140g, peeled and cut into small cubes
- ¼ cup / 20g flaked almonds toasted and chopped
- zest ¼ lemon
- zest of ½ orange
- ¼ cup / 20g sugar free dried cranberries
- ½ teaspoon ginger
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon nutmeg
- 3 tablespoon golden erythritol
- 2 tbsp / 30g butter melted
- 1 tablespoon water
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice optional
- 1 tablespoon of brandy optional
Instructions
Filling
- Place everything except the brandy and almonds in a saucepan and simmer on a low heat for about 5 minutes until quite thick but with just a little moisture left. Option to press with a fork if you want less chunky apple. Stir through almonds and optional brandy and allow to cool.
Pastry
- In food processor, pulse all the dry ingredients until combined. Add the butter chunks and cream cheese and pulse until combined. Add 1 large egg and pulse to combine again. Shape into a ball and wrap in greaseproof paper. Chill in the freezer for 20 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 180C / 350F.
- Roll the dough between two sheets of greaseproof paper until 3 - 4 mm thick. Use a 7.5cm cutter to but out bases x 6. Scrape the left over dough together and re-roll to make two more bases. Place bases in freezer whilst making the tops. Re-roll the left over dough to make 8 stars (7 cm cutter) or whatever shape you like for the top.
- NOTE: If the dough becomes too warm to cut out at any point simply place back in the freezer for 5 - 10 minutes to firm up.
- Grease a shallow muffin / Yorkshire pudding tin with butter and add a base. Add mince-meat (approx 1 tablespoon per mince pie) and then your pastry lid.
- Press to seal slightly and brush with egg wash. Bake for approximately 18 minutes or until golden on top. Allow to cool and remove from pan. Dust with powdered sweetener to serve and optional whipped cream, keto custard or keto vanilla ice cream.
Jude
On your stollen recipe it say you always use ground almond for almond flour, is that across all your recipes including this one?
Katrin Nürnberger
Yes, that is correct.
Jude
Thank you for replying so quickly and on Christmas Eve! I finally got a decent food processor so I’m excited to whip up a batch for Christmas dinner tomorrow. I’m eyeing up the Black Forest cake too. Have a great Christmas!
Ali
Hello, I’ve made your mince pies before and love them- I plan to make again after work tomorrow but we’ve been unable to source any cranberries. Is there another berry I can swap for cranberry, would blueberry work, or guava?
Thanks,
Ali
Katrin Nürnberger
Hi Alison, you could try blueberries for sure. If you don’t mind a few extra carbs, chopped prunes, apricots or raisins could also work.
Louise Smith
Fantastic recipe, I followed the comment to use fresh cranberries and it did not disappoint. Thanks for giving me back the thing I miss most at Christmas!
Victoria Holland
Hi Katrina I want to try this recipe but do I have to use cream cheese? Is there a good substitute instead? Thanks look forward to you reply.
Victoria Holland
Katrin Nürnberger
Hi Victoria, I think you can probably use more butter. The last reader who commented made the recipe with Stork, a butter replacer, and a vegan cream cheese. She was going to do the recipe again with all dairy free butter.