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My keto birthday cake recipe is light, fluffy, and perfectly moist. With a gorgeous crumb and creamy frosting, it’s the perfect dessert for any occasion! 2 grams of net carbs.
Craving more keto cake recipes? Try my keto chocolate cake, keto coffee cake, keto carrot cake, and keto pound cake next.
I have a short list of cake recipes that I can whip up at a moment’s notice, and my classic keto cake recipe is one of them.
With the same delicate crumb and sweet vanilla flavor as regular ol’ birthday cake, this cake is perfect for those of us watching our carbs who still want to keep the party going.
Table of Contents
Why I love this recipe
- The perfect texture. If you’re looking for a moist and fluffy cake with creamy frosting, this recipe ticks all the boxes.
- Multiple frosting options. I’m a weirdo who prefers vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, but I also included a few traditional frosting options too.
- It does NOT taste low-carb. Not everyone at a birthday party is necessarily keto, but I guarantee everyone will be coming back for a second slice!
- Naturally gluten-free. Because there’s no flour or grains.
Ingredients needed
- Almond flour. I strongly recommend using blanched almond flour over almond meal. Otherwise, the cake will be too dense and dark in color.
- Coconut flour. Works with the almond flour to produce a fluffy and moist cake. You don’t want to omit this or swap it for other types of flour.
- Baking powder. Helps the cake rise.
- Salt. Brings out the sweetness of the cake.
- Butter. Preferably unsalted butter. If you only have salted butter, omit the added salt.
- Sugar substitute. I like to use allulose as it dissolves like sugar does, but monk fruit sweetener should also be okay.
- Eggs. Use room temperature eggs, not refrigerated.
- Milk. I used unsweetened almond milk, but any milk works, and water can also be used in a pinch.
- Vanilla extract. A MUST for any good cake recipe!
Keto frosting options
There are plenty of ways to customize your birthday cake with different frostings. Here are some of my favorite keto frosting recipes:
- Keto cream cheese frosting. Beat together softened cream cheese, keto powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and a splash of milk.
- Cashew cream cheese frosting. Boil cashews for 5 minutes, then strain and blend with keto powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk.
- Whipped coconut cream. Beat together canned coconut cream with powdered sugar and vanilla.
- Chocolate frosting. Beat together softened butter, keto powdered sugar, vanilla, cocoa powder, and milk.
How to make a keto birthday cake
I’ve included step-by-step photos below to make this recipe easy to follow at home. For the full printable recipe instructions and ingredient quantities, scroll to the recipe card at the bottom of this post.
Step 1- Prep. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F and line two 8-inch pans with parchment paper.
Step 2- Mix the dry ingredients. In a mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients.
Step 3- Make the cake batter. In a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat until fully combined. Add the milk and vanilla and combine. Fold in the dry ingredients and beat until creamy.
Step 4- Bake. Pour the batter evenly into the two cake pans. Bake for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool completely.
Step 5- Cool and frost. Once cool, frost the cakes with your favorite frosting.
Arman’s recipe tips
- Make a single-layer cake. Cut the ingredients in half.
- For a keto chocolate cake, add two tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder.
- For a keto Funfetti cake, stir sugar-free sprinkles into the batter and frosting.
- Allow the cakes to cool completely before frosting. Otherwise, the frosting will slide right off.
Storage instructions
To store: Leftover cake should be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to five days.
To freeze: Place cake slices in a freezer-safe container and freeze for up to six months. Let them thaw overnight in the fridge.
Frequently asked questions
Please understand that I am not a medical professional. While I am knowledgable about diabetes and the diabetic way of eating (my father is diabetic), every person’s carbohydrate and sugar needs are different. I recommend speaking with a medical professional and/or registered dietician to see if this cake is suitable for you.
I tried this cake without eggs, using an egg substitute. The texture was not super moist or fluffy but quite dense. If you don’t mind that texture, use a pre-formulated egg substitute (like Ener-g egg replacer).
More low carb desserts
Keto Cake (Vanilla Cake)
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups blanched almond flour
- 1/2 cup coconut flour
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup butter use dairy free, if desired
- 1 cup allulose * See notes
- 4 large eggs ** See notes
- 1/2 cup almond milk can use any milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 serving keto vanilla frosting
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Line two 8-inch pans with parchment/baking paper and set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, add your almond flour, coconut flour, baking powder and salt and mix well. Set aside.
- In a stand mixer or hand mixer, cream your butter and allulose until fluffy, around 8 minutes. Add the eggs in, one at a time, and beat well until fully incorporated. Add the milk and vanilla extract until combined. Add the dry ingredients and beat until creamy.
- Divide the batter evenly amongst the two cake pans, and smoothen out the tops. Bake for around 22-25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool completely.
- Once cool, frost the cakes with your favorite vanilla frosting.
My brother has been eating a Keto diet for some time but I wanted to make a cake for his 60th birthday. This cake is super easy and extremely delicious! I put fresh blueberries in the filling and on the top. Together with the cream cheese icing it was soooo good. He actually had several slices that day!! Awesome recipe!
Beautiful. I made 2. Stuffed huckleberries into the top of one and wild apples into the second. Sprinkled with cinnamon and brown sugar. THE BEST.
Going to try today with fresh pears and dark chocolate.
Can you make this cake as the base for the Boston Cream cake instead?
You could try 🙂
This came out so good. I feel like so often keto cakes end up being super gritty or dense, but this was melt in your mouth soft and paired really well with the keto lemon cream cheese frosting I made. The only place I deviated was that I used 1/4 cup whole cows milk and 1/4 cup of coconut milk to have less sugar overall because I was out of almond. Really good. This is going to be my main cake recipe going forward.
Best ever! I’m making this and just going to add fresh strawberries and whip cream. But I swear this hands down the best cake!!
You have the best recipes!
My wonderful daughter-in-law just made this for my birthday a few days ago The cake part of this is truly delicious! I plan to use it as my standby recipe for strawberry shortcake the minute the berries are ready for picking!
Coconut flour is not low carb!
Karen, best for you to do your research before making ridiculous and incorrect comments.
Hi Arman,
I know you’re an Aussie, so hopefully you can answer this question: could I use this recipe in place of butter cake to make an Australian Women’s Weekly birthday cake? It’s tradition in my family to choose a cake from the book for one’s birthday and I don’t want to break that if I don’t have to!
Thanks,
Lexi
Hi Lexi! I’d be super cautious of that- That WW cake is a classic haha and this isn’t really the same 🙂
I believe I did see allulose at my store, thank you for the suggestion, I will give it a try.
Hi Arman, I made the keto vanilla birthday cake, and the flavor and texture are very good. I used Monk Fruit with Erythritol, and the cake is extremely sweet, too much so. If I were to cut the sugar in half, would the recipe still work as far as texture and properly setting up, do you think? If so, I would definitely make it again. I tried the keto donuts and chocolate keto muffins using Swerve (Erythritol only), and I did not have a problem with too much sweetness, so I could go back to the Swerve. Thanks for any suggestions.
Hi Jane! Do you have access to allulose? I find that to be my current preferred sweetener for baking 🙂
This recipe worked really well and I look forward using it to make our Christmas Trifle on Saturday. Could you let me know what size cup you use, American or Metric? I’m in NZ so we’re metric.
I use American 🙂 (I’m in Australia but the biggest audience is American so I use that as my standard measurement)
I’ve made this thrice now, with keto chocolate cream cheese frosting – twice as 6″ cakes, and once in an 8×12 pan – always turned out great.
This is an awesome recipe! Baking is a science I do NOT understand, and removing gluten and sugar makes that science even more foreign to me. But I followed the directions (for the most part) and it came out really great!!
I wanted a small cake for an adult’s party at a restaurant, so I used Wilton’s 6″ springform pan, and this is where I veered off course and almost scrapped the whole thing. For a minute, the cake appeared to be both burnt AND liquid, but after googling a bunch: you can do this, but you have to cook it at a much lower temperature for longer. Also, you should PROBABLY make 3 separate layers instead of one 6″x3″ block of cake, but hey, live and learn. Just saying, you CAN make the cake this way, but you probably should not.
Long story short, I panicked and went with a boxed cake for the party but saved this keto cake in my fridge. I got into it at 2am and drizzled some keto cream cheese icing over it and…IT IS SO GOOD. It’s dense and moist and heck yeah, I’d make this again. I bet if I’d sliced it into 3 layers & added icing it would have blown everyone’s socks off. For now, I’m going to have this with coffee in the morning and pretend it’s a breakfast pastry.
THANK YOU for such yummy recipes!! <3
how do you store the cake? can it be made ahead of time? thanks
Very Very good. I made this for my daughters birthday but was serving a diabetic in the family as well. I read the disclaimer about consulting with a nutritionist . The cake was yummy! I made it in a 9×13. Thank you for the recipe!