Keto Cake
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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.
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, it’s my go-to whenever I need a dependable low carb dessert that does not feel like a compromise- I promise!
Why I love this keto cake recipe
- The perfect texture. I need my cakes to be moist, fluffy, and with a creamy frosting, and this keto cake ticks all the boxes. Many keto cakes can turn out gritty or taste metallic, but not this one!
- Multiple frosting options. I’m a weirdo who prefers vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, but I also tested a few traditional frosting options for you.
- Nobody guesses it’s keto. I’ve made this cake for a few parties where just one person was following a low carb diet, but everyone came back for seconds of the cake- it really does taste like the real thing.
- Naturally gluten-free. No flour or grains are needed.
Table of Contents
Key Ingredients and Notes
- Almond flour and coconut flour. I use a mix of almond and coconut flours to achieve a moist, fluffy texture, which is difficult to achieve with just one flour. With the almond flour, opt for blanched almond flour, which prevents the cake from being gritty or sinking in the middle.
- Butter. I recommend unsalted butter, because I like to add the salt myself, as some brands can be a little inconsistent. Coconut oil can work, but the texture will be a little more ‘bready’ than ‘cakey’.
- Allulose. I recommend using allulose over other keto sweeteners because it dissolves like white sugar and doesn’t leave the cake with a gritty texture or a metallic aftertaste.
- Eggs. Room-temperature eggs work best, as they don’t firm up the butter when added. I usually just remove them from the fridge about 10 minutes before I start baking.
- Milk. I used unsweetened almond milk, but any milk works, and water can also be used in a pinch.
- Baking powder, salt, and vanilla.
Keto frosting options
There are plenty of ways to customize the keto 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. I recommend cooking it for about 15 minutes to thicken.
- Whipped coconut cream. Beat together canned coconut cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla.
- Chocolate frosting. My favorite (and I’m in the minority here). 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
- Don’t overmix the batter. Like a regular cake, overmixing the batter affects how fluffy and moist it turns out.
- Line the cake pans with parchment paper. These cakes a little fragile, and I find doing this guarantees the cakes release cleanly and makes cleanup much easier. A springform pan also works well.
- Don’t overbake the cakes. The tops should be lightly golden and spring back when touched. Remember, the cakes continue cooking as they cool down.
- Let the cakes cool completely before frosting. I’ve made the mistake of rushing this step before, and the frosting slid right off. A fully cooled cake is much easier to frost and decorate.
- Can I make this without eggs? 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) verus chia/or flax eggs.
Keto Cake (Vanilla Cake)
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups blanched almond flour 150g
- 1/2 cup coconut flour 56g
- 2 teaspoon baking powder 8g
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup butter unsalted, 170g
- 1 cup allulose 200g
- 4 large eggs
- 1/2 cup almond milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 serving keto vanilla frosting 240g
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Line two 8-inch pans with parchment/baking paper and set aside. You can also use greased sprinform pans.
- 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.
I’ve been using both fine and a heavier coconut sugar. The slightly nutty flavor is delicious. It’s a cross between regular brown sugar and turbinado sugar. It’s less refined and makes the best snickerdoodles made with almond & coconut flour!
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!
Made this recipe in cupcakes, for my husband who is diabetic. He loved them! They turned out amazing.
This is the first cake I made. It was loved by all. I have tried other recipes but I really do like this one and return to it often.
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 🙂
Hello Arman. Amazing recipes. Tried many. And succeeded in all. No fail recipes.
I know you said not to add any more ingredients but I added a very ripe banana to make one 8” cake. I used 1/4 cup monk fruit and 1/4 white sugar. And my choice of milk was whole milk. The cake turned out fluffy and moist. Increased cook time by a few minutes. I thought I’d share.
Thanks again. This tired mom comes to your site every time there’s a request to make treats for her boy. I know it’d be easy and fast.
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)