People Love Desserts!
But desserts don’t always love people. Too much sugar and carbs will send anyone’s health into a downward spiral. That’s why when something so simple as a Caramel Nut Cluster can be made completely sugar-free and low carb, we make sure we perfect that recipe to enjoy it guilt-free! These little nuggets of joy are crunchy, creamy, sweet and salty. It’s amazing how well these flavors and textures work together. You’ll swear they’re store bought.
For those of you who don’t know, Rami and I are on the road right now! Blogging from Malta currently. We gotta say, it’s a lot easier to keep low carb in Malta than it was in Italy. I mean, anyone could’ve told me that but I was optimistically naive. It’s easy enough to order something low carb from a restaurant since Italians separate their first course (usually pasta/ravioli/risotto) from their main course (usually some yummy meat dish). The problem was, however, the main courses were always so tiny. After a giant course of pasta it’s no wonder their main course would be minuscule – you’re so full of carbs!
The gorgeous view from our apartment!
Here in Malta, we’re finding the portion sizes to be massive. We learned quickly that an octopus salad is pretty much a giant plate of char-grilled octopus with fresh lemon. That’s it. What else do you need, though? We were very pleased with the portions and endless options. We found Indian, Moroccan, Thai, Chinese, Japanese (all you can eat sushi, yes!), Italian and of course, traditional Maltese restaurants scattered all over our area. The entire country itself can be traveled coast-to-coast in about an hour so traveling between cities was incredibly fast and easy.
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We stayed in the Qawra/Bugibba area in an Airbnb apartment with a gorgeous view! We enjoyed the modernness, cleanliness and relaxed atmosphere of the apartment, building, and neighborhood. Just down the block, we had scuba diving, water sports, cafes, swimming and more. If you haven’t tried Airbnb yet, you have to! Connect with people, safely, all over the world and stay in their homes. Many rent our their entire apartments for travelers to enjoy short term (as short as a night or 2). It’s the only way we travel – we haven’t stayed at a hotel in years. We enjoy the independence and comfort of having an actual home for our vacations. Use our link and you’ll instantly get $35 off your first booking 😀
You really can’t beat having a full kitchen on vacation. You save money and know exactly what’s going into your food. No hidden carbs here! That’s not to say we didn’t enjoy some of the restaurants Malta had to offer. Here are some of the fantastic dishes we loved during our stay! Follow us on Instagram to see more updates of our travels.
All the yummy, keto friendly food we’ve been having in Malta.
Unlike the States, Malta is pretty far behind on the sugarless trend. We found it pretty hard to find sugar-free desserts when we needed a little something sweet. So we decided to put together something super easy at home with the limited ingredients (and equipment) we had. Enter nut clusters.
We’re suckers for recipes with few ingredients (could you tell by our ebooks, Breakfast in Five and Dinner in Five, where all recipes have only 5 ingredients?) so these Caramel Nut Clusters were right up our alley. They’re just 7 ingredients and require no special equipment besides your stove/oven for a quick caramel and chocolate melt. Each one is under 2 grams of net carbs and can technically qualify as a fat bomb.
Look at that candy melt!
We found a brand that makes lots of different flavors of zero-calorie, zero-sugar candies that Rami fell in love with. One of the flavors was caramel, which inspired us to create these Caramel Nut Clusters. In the States, I know Werther’s makes a good sugar-free caramel hard candy (you can buy it here on Amazon too!). The candies melt and cement the nuts together very nicely. And since they are no longer in their little candy shape, it’s very easy to bite through them. They give the candies a nice crunch when cooled. Here’s the brand we used:
Hope you enjoy this super simple, low carb dessert recipe as much as we did!
| Servings: clusters |
- 9 pecans
- 20 macadamias
- 9 sugar-free caramel candies
- 1 tsp coarse sea salt
- 2-3 tbsp heavy cream
- 40 g 85% dark chocolate (or Baker's Chocolate)
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- Preheat the oven to 320°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Arrange the pecans evenly and add a 2-3 macadamia nuts near them, overlapping slightly. It helps if you crack some macadamias in half so they have a flat side on which to lay.
- Place a sugar-free caramel candy onto each pile of nuts and carefully transfer to the hot oven.
- Bake for about 10 minutes, keeping an eye on the caramels. They should melt just to the point of touching each nut. Don't let them melt into a large puddle around the piles. Once the candies have melted, take the tray out of the oven and let cool completely. The caramel will harden, cementing the nuts together.
- While the caramel is cooling, make the chocolate ganache. In a double boiler or small pot on low heat, heat the heavy cream until almost bubbling. Drop 40 grams of 85% dark chocolate (we used Lindt, which is 4 squares) and let it melt, stirring gently. Add the vanilla extract and stir to combine.
- Once smooth and silky, add about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of chocolate to each pile of nuts, letting it drape across the candies entirely or leaving some nuts and caramel peeking through.
- Sprinkle a bit of coarse sea salt onto each candy while the chocolate is still wet. Refrigerate for about an hour and enjoy!
Loved this recipe? Let us know! Something didn’t quite turn out right? Ask us in the comments below or contact us– we respond to comments every day and would love to hear from you and help you out! And check out all our low carb dessert recipes to learn to make more delicious and healthy meals!
NUTRITIONAL DISCLAIMER
The content on this website should not be taken as medical advice and you should ALWAYS consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. We provide nutritional data for our recipes as a courtesy to our readers. We use Total Keto Diet app software to calculate the nutrition and we remove fiber and sugar alcohols, like erythritol, from the total carbohydrate count to get to the net carb count, as they do not affect your blood glucose levels. You should independently calculate nutritional information on your own and not rely on our data. The website or content herein is not intended to cure, prevent, diagnose or treat any disease. This website shall not be liable for adverse reactions or any other outcome resulting from the use of recipes or recommendations on the Website or actions you take as a result. Any action you take is strictly at your own risk.
You’ll Love Our Dessert in Five Cookbook!
We believe that the key to success is simplicity and satisfaction with your diet. That’s why we created Dessert in Five – 30 low carb dessert recipes all using just 5 ingredients and 5 net carbs or fewer!
Enjoy strawberry cheesecakes, brownies, coconut cream pies, raspberry Danish cookies and much more every day of the month.
Dr. Rosmy Barrios, MD is an aesthetic medicine specialist whose work focuses on patients who are treated for obesity, metabolic syndrome, and other weight-related issues through nutritional analysis, keto diet programs, and supporting medications.
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Greetings… New to me to diet and this site. Recipes look yummy! What are serving sizes for meals and these chocolate, nutty caramel candies? Thank you for sharing. Can’t hardly wait to make and taste these.
You can eat as many as you like, as long as they fit your macros 🙂 we recommend 2-3 as they’re quite calorie dense.
While this looks amazing, I’m confused on the carb count. In viewing the carbs for sugar free with Worther’s, it’s 14G of carbs for 5 pieces… which means each cluster has to have nearly 3 carbs per piece… There’s no fiber in the candy piece, so how do we get 1.5g for the entire cluster?
Pls advise. I’m really trying to keep things “Keto” and don’t want to wind up gaining weight while being so strict. Thanks.
We count net carbs for all our recipes. That means we subtract fiber and sugar alcohols from the total carb count. I hope that helps!
Can you please add a link for the candies?
Added!
These look delicious!
Couple questions – are the caramels the hard type or soft (before they’re baked)?
Also vanilla extract is listed as an ingredient but not mentioned in the instructions. I’m assuming it would be put in at the same time as the chocolate, is that right?
They’re hard candies before baking and harden back when out of the oven. And yes! Missed the part about adding it in. I’ll update the recipe right now. Thanks!
Awesome! I actually found some recipes for making homemade sugar free caramel – I might try that as well to add with sugar free chocolate. Might not work as well with individual candies since it’s more of a sauce but might make a good bar that can be cut into pieces. 🙂
Sounds like it could work!
These little desserts look delicious! Can’t wait to make some for holiday gatherings!
These clusters are a sugar-free dream come true! Perfect for the holidays!
They would be perfect for the holidays! We’ll make sure to share them around that time 🙂