Is he okay with the taste of Splenda? If so, I would use one of the flourless peanut butter cookies or one that is flourless with oats added in and sub Splenda for the sugar. My daughter is diabetic but takes insulin so we have not tried many sugar free recipes. Sometimes I use have Splenda and half sugar but I can always taste the Splenda still.

I've made them with Splenda for my father -- I remember using a recipe that called for almond flour. I think I just searched the net and used the best-rated recipe I found at the time.

Here's a recipe I found on Food.com

Ingredients

• • 1 cup
    flour
• 2 tablespoons
  flour
• 1/2 cup
  Splenda granular
  ( or use Sugar Twin)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons
  baking powder
• 2/3 cup
  creamy natural-style peanut butter
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil or 1/4 cup
  canola oil
• 1
  egg
• 2 tablespoons
  water
• 1 teaspoon
  vanilla

Directions

1. Set oven to 375 degrees.
2. Grease a cookie sheet.
3. In a bowl combine flour, Splenda or Sugar Twin and baking powder.
4. Add in peanut butter, oil, egg, water and vanilla; mix well to combine.
5. Shape into 1-inch balls and place on the cookie sheet.
6. Flatten each cookie with a fork.
7. Bake for about 10-12 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Here's where we'll really miss grainlady.... but according to what I understand regarding diabetes, you should be going for low-carb. Almond flour will do that for you. And, fwiw, I wouldn't ever consider making a pb cookie w/ veg oil in the recipe. blech.

Ricky, I'm certain this isn't the recipe I used, but it is similar. Low-Carb PB Cookies

From what I have read, whole wheat flour is supposedly a slightly better choice (than white AP flour) for diabetics.

party_music - Excellent! Thank you. I'll get a small sack of almond flour at Fresh Market tomorrow. I'm also making the Key Lime Cookies with Swerve so I'll use the balance of the almond flour to make them. Thanks.

Yuck. That's all I'll say about these cookies and that I wasted a pile of cash on stuff I'll never use again. Hope my dad likes them, or at least pretends that he does.

Which recipe did you try? is it the Splenda that's the problem? for me it's too icky-sweet and has a funky aftertaste. :p

I went through the same thing trying to bake something sweet for my father w/ diabetes. It's just not going to have the same taste and texture as a regular/traditional baked good with flour and sugar.... but they can eat it.

I used the recipe from your link. The "sugar" was Swerve, that must be where the aftertaste came from. Can't say I'm a fan of the almond flour either.

I've never heard of Swerve and just did a little research. I suspect that's your problem w/ aftertaste... interesting comments about testing various non-sugar sweeteners for baking here. And in reading other various comments/taste tests I see that Swerve tends to impart the [unwanted] fruity flavors that it's made from, vs just a 'sweetness'.

Don't know what you mean about not being a fan of almond flour... it's just finely ground almonds. As a flour substitute it's low carb, has good flavor, and isn't grainy. What can be bad? lol!

It's the lack of gluten. The peanut butter cookies worked, the key lime cookies melted.

ah. What recipe did you use for the key lime cookies? Baking without gluten is a bit of an art and usually requires a binder/thickener like xanthan gum, eggs, flaxseed meal slurry, etc.

Ricky's Key Lime Cookies

So you substituted almond flour for the 3 c. AP flour, and Swerve for the sugar, but didn't add xanthan or anything else as additional binder? The recipe contains so much "flour" that I believe additional binder would be required. About the chill time... assuming you did chill for 1+ hours, I suspect you would have better luck if you made into balls and then chilled. In general, it's better to bake gluten-free at slightly lower temps and for longer time.

ETA: I'm not convinced that key lime with all almond flour would be a good flavor combo anyway.

Ricky, this KAF blog does a good job of explaining how to deal with almond flour. I've done a lot of gluten-free conversions (since 2010), so I have a good feel on what works and what doesn't. If you want to use all almond flour, I'd recommend starting with a recipe that only requires 1/2 - 1 c flour to begin with.

Gluten-free baking tips

Ricky, I am diabetic and have kept to a low carb diet to help control my blood sugars. I realize you didn't like Swerve but I found this website to have the most consistently good baked goods recipes. I've not made all of the recipes but have made several and was very happy with the results. This blogger has done the trial and error testing to maintain the best taste and texture. It's worth a try with your remaining supply of Swerve and almond flour...not much to lose?

All Day I Dream About Food

Is Swerve the same thing as Stevia? I've never used stevia for baking but I do use it in coffee and it's not too bad. Have you tried it?

Ricky, I just now saw your msg from Saturday and replied!

Well, thanks everyone for the suggestions, but I'm going to just buy dad some sugar-free, carb-free, taste-free peanut butter cookies the next time. 60 cookies - key lime and peanut - cost me almost $30. At two bucks a cookie, I'll by Voortman's or some other brand instead.

Ricky, I hear you! however, I think you should make one more stab at it... sometime when the oven is already on, so you won't waste more energy too. :) Try the simplest 3-ingredient pb cookie and just sub an artificial sweetener for the sugar. 3-ingredient PB Cookies

ritaweeda, Swerve is erythritol.

Here is a review of the 3 Ingredient PB Cookies recipe (Party_Music linked above) that was posted on the linked recipe:

I am diabetic so I substituted 1 cup of Splenda baking sweetener and they turned out wonderful. But you must use the baking Splenda. Even my husband liked them, of course I did not tell him they were made with a sugar substitute at first. After tasting them, he didn't care.