These have been in progress in my kitchen for seven years, through several rounds of finding out what I could and could not eat. Every version was a response to something being taken off the table. This is the one my family asks for.
The part worth reading, if you skip everything else, is the konjac egg. I had the idea the day my allergy panel came back and I understood that eggs were out, at least for that season. If you have baked without eggs you already know the options and you already know how they go. Flax reads faintly of fish. Chia speckles everything grey. Banana and applesauce both take over, and what you get is banana bread that happens to be cookie-shaped.
Konjac gels cleanly, brings nothing of its own to the flavor, and behaves like a binder rather than an ingredient. The cookie still tastes like a cookie. It works particularly well alongside tahini and tigernut flour, which are both doing enough on their own without something else competing.
What is in it, and why
- Tahini. Structure, richness, and the chew. Sesame is high in fat and that fat is what gives you a bakery texture without gluten holding anything together. Another nut or seed butter will work, but tahini is what makes this one what it is. It also brings real calcium and copper, which most cookies do not.
- Tigernut flour. A tuber rather than a nut, in spite of the name, so it is fine for most nut allergies. It is naturally sweet and quite fibrous, which means it absorbs differently from almond or coconut flour. Do not swap it one for one and expect the same dough.
- Konjac eggs. Glucomannan, which is the fiber in the konjac root, holds an enormous amount of water in a gel. That gel does the job an egg white does in a batter. It is flavorless, it is not a dark color, and it does not sweeten anything.
- Collagen peptides. Protein that dissolves into a dough without going chalky or rubbery the way whey does in baking. It also has no flavor of its own, so it does not fight the tahini.
- Allulose or maple sugar. Whichever you choose is doing bulk and structure, not only sweetness. A cookie needs something crystalline in it to spread and to brown properly, and this is why you cannot simply take the sugar out of a recipe and expect a cookie at the other end.
- Monk fruit extract. Sweetness without bulk. It is there so you can use less allulose, which is the expensive part. A little goes a long way and too much turns bitter, so measure it rather than eyeballing.
- Chocolate chips. I use ChocZero or Goalz. Standard dark chips work and will raise the sugar, which matters more to the carb count here than anything else in the bowl.
This dough spreads on its own
Earlier versions of this used coconut flour, then sesame flour, then almond flour, and all of them needed the dough pressed flat before baking or you got a ball that never opened up. This one is wetter and spreads by itself. Scoop, drop, leave it alone.
Check the label before you buy allulose
Allulose is increasingly sold cut with dextrose, and dextrose is glucose. If the reason you are reaching for allulose is that ordinary sugar does not work for you, a blend defeats the point, and the front of the bag will still say allulose in large letters. Turn it over and read the ingredient list. You want one ingredient.
This has moved recently enough that a supplier who was fine last year may not be now, mine included. As of this update, Vitacost and Azure Standard both carry a single-ingredient allulose.
Tigernut Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies
Grain-free and nut-free, with a konjac egg option that stays neutral. The dough spreads on its own, so there is no pressing.
Conversions are approximate. Whole foods vary.
Nutrition — tahini and collagen together mean this carries real protein and real minerals, which is unusual for a cookie and is most of the reason it exists.
Blood sugar — the fat and protein alongside the sweetener slow the whole thing down. What the carb count actually lands on depends almost entirely on which chocolate chips you use.
Let the konjac gel for a full two minutes before you add anything. Glucomannan needs that time to hydrate. Rushed, it stays grainy and the dough will not hold.
Cool them ten minutes on the tray. They are fragile straight out of the oven and set as they cool.
Ingredients
The binder, choose one
- 1.5 tsp konjac root powder, whisked into 0.75 cup water
- 3 pastured eggs
Everything else
- 0.75 cup tahini, or another nut or seed butter
- 6 scoops collagen peptides
- 0.75 cup tigernut flour
- 0.25 cup allulose, or maple sugar
- 1 tsp monk fruit extract powder, slightly heaping
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 0.75 tsp baking soda
- 0.75 tsp pink salt
- 0.5 cup dark chocolate chips
Method
- Heat the oven to 325°F, which is 163°C, and line a baking sheet with parchment.
- Put the water in a medium bowl and sprinkle the konjac powder over the surface. Leave it two full minutes to gel. If you are using eggs instead, whisk them in the bowl and carry on.
- Add the tahini and mix until it is smooth.
- Mix in the monk fruit, baking soda, salt and vanilla.
- Add the allulose, the collagen and the tigernut flour, and mix to a thick dough.
- Fold the chocolate chips through.
- Scoop onto the parchment and leave them as they land. A medium cookie scoop is about right. There is no pressing.
- Bake 10 to 12 minutes.
- Cool ten minutes on the tray before moving them.
Per cookie
Show calories
~193 with allulose, ~209 with maple sugar
Most of the women I work with are eating too little rather than too much.
Calcium — notable for a cookie. Sesame, and it is the reason tahini is worth the price.
Copper — high. Tahini again, with a little from the chocolate.
Magnesium — moderate. Tahini and the chocolate together.
Zinc — moderate. Tahini.
Computed from ingredient weights against USDA reference values. The protein range covers the two binder options, as eggs add a little over the konjac version. Fiber is roughly 7g, and what the net carb figure comes to depends almost entirely on your chocolate chips, so it is not printed here. Read your own bag.
Notes and swaps
Tigernut flour does not substitute one for one with almond or coconut. Those versions need the dough pressed.
Collagen scoop sizes vary a good deal between brands. Six scoops here means roughly two ounces.
Maple sugar in place of allulose gives you a more classic cookie and a browner edge.
Monk fruit turns bitter if you overdo it. Measure rather than eyeball.
They keep four or five days in a tin and freeze well raw, scooped, on a tray.
Konjac powder is sold as glucomannan as well. Same thing.
Cost
Organic and specialty ingredients — $18 to $26 a batch, so $1.50 to $2.20 a cookie.
Conventional or mixed pantry — $12 to $18 a batch, so $1.00 to $1.50 a cookie.
Priced against online retail averages in December 2025. Collagen and tigernut flour are most of it. Buying either in a larger bag changes the figure considerably.
Brenna May Wellness
Where I get these
The collagen, the tahini and the konjac powder are all in my dispensary. Konjac in particular is worth buying somewhere you trust, as it is sold in a wide range of grinds and the fine one is what gels properly. The allulose I buy elsewhere, for the labelling reason above.
The rest of the pantry is there too, along with the household cleaning and skincare I actually use. Browse the whole dispensary.
Some of these links earn me a small commission. It does not change what you pay, and I only list things I actually use.