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.
Carbs in mince pie
However, the amount of sugar and carbs a supermarket mince pie contains is eye-watering, however little they are. 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 and keep an open mind. Meaning, these gluten free keto mince pies do not EXACTLY taste like regular mince pies. They are a touch fruitier.
But they contain all the same spices and textures we love about mince pies.
Check out the ingredients for this healthy mince pie recipe 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.
My dried cranberries 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
Place everything except the brandy and almonds in a saucepan and simmer on a low heat 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.
Shortcrust pastry
In food processor, pulse all the dry ingredients until combined. Add the butter chunks and cream cheese and pulse until combined. Add the egg and pulse to combine again.
Shape the shortcrust dough into a ball and wrap in cling film. Chill in the freezer.
Roll the dough between two sheets of baking paper until 3 - 4 mm thick. Use a 7.5 cm cutter to cut out bases....
... and then stars.
Now you assemble the mince pies! Grease a shallow muffin baking tray with butter and add a base. Add the mincemeat...
... 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.
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!
FAQ
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.
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
from Sugar Free LondonerNote: The servings slider only changes the first amount in each line and not any subsequent amounts. Please make your own calculations where necessary.
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.
Kathy Gilchrist
Could I use fresh pitted cherries instead of cranberries for the fruit mince. We don't get sugar free cranberries here.
Katrin Nürnberger
I think that could work well as a substitute.
Marilena
These are the most awesome keto Mince pie ever. I just replaced the apple with keto fake apple and it worked perfect. Thank you for the recipe!!!
Cherie Palmer
Has anyone tried making with frozen yet? Wouldn't you have to add more cranberries if you used frozen as when drying you take water out. Also, how long does this mixture keep in the fridge?
Katrin Nürnberger
You can keep the mixture in the fridge for a few days. Frozen cranberries would work just as well as fresh. Just add the same amount, but cook them down for longer and adjust the sweetener, adding a little more to get the same sweetness.
Nicki
Can I use fresh cranberries instead of dried cranberries as I can't find sugar free ones?
Katrin Nürnberger
Someone else just asked that question. I think this should work. As you are adding more liquid this way, I guess that you would have to cook the mixture for longer to reduce it to the same consistency.
SARAH JANE ROBERTS
Hello - firstly thankyou for the time and effort that goes into coming up with these recipes! I was wondering if you think it would work to use frozen cranberries in the mince rather than dried? (I assume may need to cook longer and/or reduce the other liquid content)
Katrin Nürnberger
Yes, I think if you would adjust the cooking time that should work just as well.
Ruth
Thank you for this wonderful recipe, my hubby is in heaven! The one thing he misses at Christmas in our low carb life is mince pies, this recipe has now got that covered! The pastry is very light and easier to work than I expected. I added calvados to the filling before cooking it and the flavour was amazing. I'm going to try freezing some before he eats them all at once.