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This easy keto birthday cake is a low carb twist on the classic vanilla birthday cake! Made with almond flour and coconut flour, this moist and fluffy cake is the BEST low carb birthday cake recipe! 2 grams net carbs per LARGE slice.
Keto Vanilla Cake
When it comes to birthdays, we have a few keto birthday desserts on rotation. Our favorites are keto brownies, keto chocolate cheesecake and now, this easy keto birthday cake.
I’ve been meaning to make a keto friendly birthday cake for ages now. I keep putting it off, but with my birthday fast approaching, I wanted to do something special and have my cake, and making it keto too.
Growing up, my birthday cake was ALWAYS a vanilla cake or a white cake. I never really chose those fancy flavors and loved the simplicity of it. To keep the tradition alive, my keto cake HAD to be simple yellow vanilla cake.
Now, this keto cake may look incredibly fancy, but I promise you, it is SO easy to make.
No grains, no sugar, and no dairy whatsoever, but you’d never tell. I served this with all my non-keto friends and NO one knew it was low carb and sugar free. In fact, several of them have requested it for THEIR birthdays!
The texture of this birthday cake is JUST like any vanilla cake out there- moist and fluffy, with a tender crumb. The taste is gorgeous- sweet with notes of vanilla throughout.
Ingredients for a Birthday Keto Cake
Here is what you will need for this easy keto birthday cake. Please avoid substituting any of the ingredients, unless specifically stated. For such a fancy looking birthday cake, you’ll love this simple and easy ingredient list.
- Almond Flour– You must use blanched almond flour, otherwise the cake will be darker and denser. Blanched almond flour is often called superfine almond flour.
- Coconut Flour– Works with the almond flour to produce a super fluffy and moist cake. DO NOT omit this or substitute this for something else.
- Baking Powder– Leavens out the cake and helps it rise.
- Salt– Brings out the sweetness of the cake.
- Butter– I used vegan butter, to keep it dairy free. If you use vegan butter, try to use the stick variety (not spreadable) as it doesn’t have any added water or fillers on it.
- Sugar Substitute– You can use either monk fruit sweetener or erythritol. I prefer using monk fruit as it is most similar to white sugar.
- Eggs– Use room temperature eggs, not refrigerated.
- Milk of choice– Almond milk, coconut milk, cashew milk, etc. All will work.
- Vanilla extract– A MUST for any cake or baked food recipe.
How to make a keto birthday cake
This ingredient amounts provided for this low carb birthday cake recipe is to make a layer cake. If you’d like to make a single cake, simply halve the ingredients!
Start by greasing two 8-inch cake pans and set aside. Next, combine your dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and mix until combined.
In a separate bowl or in a stand mixer, add your sugar substitute with butter. Beat together the two ingredients until creamy and fluffy. This usually takes around 8 minutes. Continue mixing while adding the eggs in, one at a time. Next, add the milk and vanilla extract and beat it into the batter. Finally, add in the dry mixture and beat all together until creamy.
Finally, you’ll transfer the keto vanilla cake batter evenly amongst the two cake pans. Bake the cakes for 22-25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool completely, before frosting them and layering them up.
Frosting Ideas
Any vanilla or white frosting will work, or you can even go the chocolate route. Here are a few other ideas-
- Cream cheese frosting– Use any cream cheese frosting of your choice. Be sure to use dairy free cream cheese to keep it vegan!
- Cashew cream cheese frosting– My go-to frosting. It’s a little more time consuming but it’s so creamy, thick and rich!
- Whipped coconut cream– Simple and delicious!
Keto Vanilla Cake Tips
- Again, this makes a keto layer birthday cake. For a single cake, halve the ingredients.
- I highly recommend using a stand mixer or hand mixer to beat the ingredients. I tried mixing by hand and while it does work, I find the former have the fluffier texture.
- For a keto Funfetti birthday cake, add some sugar free sprinkles into the batter and on the frosting.
- Your cake must be cooled completely before frosting.
- Do not overbake the cake, as the cake continues to bake while it cools.
Is this a diabetic cake?
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.
To see if this cake is suitable for a diabetic diet and can be considered a diabetic cake, please seek appropriate advice.
Can I make this without eggs?
I tried this keto vanilla birthday cake without eggs, using an egg substitute. The texture was not super moist or fluffy, and quite dense. If you don’t mind that texture, then use a pre-formulated egg substitute (e.g. ener-g egg replacer).
I haven’t tried this with flax eggs or chia eggs, so please let me know if you try it out- I’d love to hear how it works!
Storing and Freezing Tips
- To store: Leftover sugar free birthday cake should be stored in the refrigerator, to avoid any potential spoilage. Keep the cake covered in a sealable container. It will keep well for at least 5 days.
- To freeze: If you don’t plan on eating the keto birthday cake within 5 days, freeze the leftovers! Place slices of the cake in a freezer friendly container, or in large portions. Birthday keto cake will keep well frozen for up to 6 months.
More Keto Friendly Desserts
Keto Birthday 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 granulated sweetener of choice * 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 sugar 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!