Intensely chocolatey and extra crunchy, this grain free and keto cocoa puffs cereal is bound to have you swooning!
Grain Free & Keto Cocoa Puffs Cereal 🥄
Extra Crunchy ⚡
This recipe for keto chocolate cereal has been a long time coming. Fact is, ever since we published our grain free keto cinnamon toast crunch requests have been pouring in. We have, however, been working on making it extra crunchy.
The Deets 🔍
Creaming the butter properly with the sweeter is paramount here to build a nice structure for the cereal (think rise and crunch!). And creaming with sweetener, in case you haven’t done it before, takes a bit longer to incorporate than with good-old sugar. But don’t give up, and keep going until you’ve got the sweetener well incorporated into soft and fluffy butter.
The other indispensable thing, is that the dough be thoroughly chilled before rolling and baking. Why? The butter in the dough has to solidify once again before you can roll it out and cut it up. Think 1 to 2 hours (or overnight).
And if the dough becomes too sticky while rolling and cutting, just pop it in the freezer for a few (and a sprinkle of cocoa powder always helps too).
The Chocolate 🍫
Cocoa or cacao? Both work great, just know that quality really matters here. Our favorite will forever be the Dutch-processed alkaline cocoa Valrhona, known to be one of (if not the) best cocoas in the world. But feel free to use a raw cacao powder (arguably more nutritional perks here), though keep in mind that your cereal will be lighter in color and more reddish in hue. Both are well and good, as long as they’re unsweetened.
How dark? Talking dark chocolate versus milk is a sure way to divide a crowd! And we like these keto Cocoa Puffs with a nice and dark chocolate cookie. But since we know dark isn’t for everyone, the main recipe is a more ‘milk chocolate’ version like the traditional cereal.
An optional coating. If you want your cereal to ‘stain’ the milk, simply brush with melted butter right out of the oven and sprinkle with a sugar and cocoa mix.
The Flours
We found here that super fine almond flour did a killer job (solo!). Add a touch of xanthan gum, and we’re golden.
In terms of brands, for the almond either Anthony’s or WellBees work great. Both are super fine grinds.
The Sweetener 🍯
This recipe works best with Swerve, without a doubt. Not only is it roughly 1-to-1 in sweetness to sugar (and the volume is important here), but it lends a very similar crunch and chew. No other sweetener did that. And if you’re generally bothered by it’s cooling effect, you won’t bat an eyelash here with all the minty goodness going on.
Just note that erythritol (i.e. Swerve) takes a while to crunch up post baking. So give your cookies ample time (think anywhere from 2-4 hours) to get nice and crisp.
Also keep in mind that, as much as we’re fans of xylitol in general, it results in chewy rather than crisp cookies here (as it takes up to a day or two to go back to it’s solid state!). So no xylitol please. And in case you’re wondering about Pyure, we’re never fans of stevia (in any shape or form) coming in contact with chocolate (a not-so-nice aftertaste). But if you’re immune to it, technically Pyure also works here.
Grain Free & Keto Cocoa Puffs Cereal
Ingredients
For the keto Cocoa Puffs cereal
- 144 g almond flour *see. notes for a 'dark chocolate' version
- 50 g cocoa powder *see. notes for a 'dark chocolate' version
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 80 g unsalted grass-fed butter at room temperature
- 128 g Swerve
- 1 egg
For the topping (optional)
- 1 tablespoon melted grass-fed butter
- 1-2 tablespoons Swerve or xylitol, to taste
- 1/2-2 teaspoons cocoa powder to taste
Instructions
- Add almond flour, cocoa powder, salt, xanthan gum and baking soda to a medium bowl. Whisk until thoroughly combined and set aside.
- Begin to cream butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer, 1-2 minutes. Add in sweetener and continue to beat until thoroughly mixed and much of the sweetener has dissolved (3-5 minutes).
- Add in egg, mixing until just incorporated. The mixture will appear slightly 'broken' (i.e. not thoroughly smooth).
- With your mixer on low, add in half of your flour mixture- mixing until just incorporated. Mix in the rest.
- Wrap cereal dough with cling film (saran wrap) and refrigerate for 1 hour (or overnight).
- Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C and have a baking tray handy.
- Roll out the dough between two pieces of parchment paper until nice and thin. Cut out by pressing down with a ruler (takes a couple minutes this way, for real). Alternatively (and only if you have an hour or two to kill), pinch little rounds of dough and form into balls.
- Transfer cutout cookies with the parchment paper onto prepared baking tray. Place in the freezer for 15 minutes prior to baking.
- Bake for 8-12 minutes. Since the cereal is dark already and you can't guide yourself by color, check in often the first time around. When ready, the cereal will have puffed somewhat and smell amazing (this is our best cue here), but you'll want to push the baking time to get them nice and crisp. So just keep an eye out for them.
- Optional topping (to 'stain' the milk): brush with melted butter right out of the oven and sprinkle with cocoa sugar.
- Allow to cool for ten minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely, as it'll continue to crunch up (because of the sugar alcohol, this may take a few hours!).
- Store in an airtight container for up to a week. And keep in mind that these cookies can be baked, once shaped, straight from the freezer (the batter keeps well frozen for up to 3 months).
I made a triple batch and will definitely make it again! Here’s what I learned:
1. Add a little vanilla extract 1/2- 1 tsp. Adds A depth of flavor. I tried one batch as written and the other 2 with the vanilla and glad I did!
2. Roll out thin. I had uneven thickness and the thinner ones got crispier. I ended up putting them back in the oven after doing the butter and dusting with cocoa and sweetener. Even after the second round, the thick ones didn’t crisp up. Still hold their shape and delicious!
3. It’s best to have some space between each piece of cereal so they bake as an individual piece. When using the ruler to cut the dough wiggle the ruler a little bit to give a little space between your rows.
4. After removing them from the freezer, I used the ruler again to spread them out a bit more.
5. I don’t think I saw any measurement guides for the size of your squares, which would have been helpful. Mine ended up bigger than I wanted, being basically one bite of cereal per piece. I’m calling them brownie bite cereal! Next time I’m trying 1/2- 3/4”.
Such great chocolate flavor! I used allulose instead of Swerve, which probably led to the cereal not being very crispy, but the flavor more than makes up for it. It stills stays together in a bowl of almond milk and doesn’t fall apart. I think it makes it seem like eating little brownie squares in milk – yum!
Thank you for your hard work and amazing recipes! My daughter was wishing for Cocoa puffs and i’m so excited to have found this recipe! How does splenda work with this recipe? Will it work?
Omg I found your site through a google search and I am so glad I did! I have been Craving cereal since going back keto and I absolutely will Not spend $30+ on a store bought keto cereal. I will be trying this out tomorrow. Thank you!!!
Do you think there is anyway to substitute coconut oil or palm shortening for the butter to make it dairy free?