Making sugar-free & keto-friendly cake layers involves using low-carb ingredients that replace traditional high-carb ones like flour, as well as removing sugar from the equation. There are quite a few challenges, though. Keto iterations of cake layers tend to be dry, fragile, or taste bad. In this article, you’ll find detailed instructions for preparing keto-friendly cake layers that hold their shape, have perfect texture, and taste amazingly well.
Ingredients of Keto Cake Layers
For a cake with 22 cm diameter, you'll need:
- 4 tablespoon almond flour
- 4 tablespoon Monk Fruit sweetener
- 4 eggs
- a pinch of salt
- ⅓ orange zest
Instructions
- Preheat the oven: Preheat your oven to 365°F (185°C). Prepare two 8.7-inch (22 cm) round cake pans by lining the bottoms with parchment paper and greasing the parchment paper and the sides of the baking pan with butter for easy removal.
- Whisk the egg whites: Separate egg yolks from the whites. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until well combined and slightly foamy (but not until firm foam). Add 1 teaspoon of the sweetener and continue whisking until very firm.
- Beat the egg yolks: In a mixing bowl, add the rest of the sweetener to the egg yolks and whisk until the volume has increased at least 2 times and the mixture turns light yellow.
- Add the remaining ingredients: To the beaten eggs, add orange zest and almond flour. Mix well until everything is fully incorporated.
- Combine the two mixtures: Transfer the whisked egg whites to the bowl with the egg yolk mixture and stir lightly to combine.
- Divide the batter: Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared cake pans. If you only have one baking pan, skip this step and bake all the batter at once – you’ll be able to cut the cake layer into two after baking. NB: if baking all at once, the baking time will increase to 20-30 minutes.
- Bake the cake layers: Place the pans in the preheated oven and bake for about 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean.
- Cool the cake layers: Once the cakes are done baking, remove them from the oven and take off the sides of the baking pan. Then, turn the cakes upside down, remove the bottom plates of the baking pans and the parchment paper carefully. Place the sheets of the parchment paper that you just removed from the cakes onto the kitchen counter, the greasy side up, and transfer the cakes onto the sheet (basically, you’ll end up with the parchment paper placed on the opposite side of the cake). This step is crucial and will ensure your cake doesn’t sink in the middle. Let it cool for about 10 minutes. Then turn the cakes upside down again and remove the parchment paper.
- (Only when using one cake pan) Cut the cake layer: Place the baked cake layer onto a flat and even surface and take a long, sharp knife – preferably, a serrated bread knife. By holding the cake layer in place with your hand on top, cut the cake layer in half horizontally.
- Store until assembling: You can either start assembling the cake right away, store the cake layers in the fridge, or even freeze to ensure you have the cake layers at hand when you’re ready to finish your cake.
Your keto-friendly cake layers are now ready to enjoy!
While almond flour and coconut flour are both popular low-carb alternatives to traditional flour, they have different properties. Coconut flour is much more absorbent than almond flour, so you can't substitute them one-to-one in a recipe. Our experiments have shown that cake layers with coconut flour tend to be drier, more crumbly, and have grainy texture. We therefore suggest sticking to this recipe as close as possible to ensure the result meets your expectations.
There are various keto-friendly sweeteners available, such as erythritol, stevia, monk fruit sweetener, allulose, or xylitol. The best sweetener that we suggest using for cake layers is a monk fruit sweetener. It ensures perfect texture and leaves no after-taste. Allulose, on the other hand, usually won’t let you achieve very firm foams when whisking eggs. Having experimented with quite a few different sweeteners, we strongly suggest using monk fruit sweetener that works perfectly in this recipe.
Achieving moisture and fluffiness in keto cakes can be a bit challenging due to the absence of gluten, which helps with the structure in regular cakes. In this recipe, we’re not using milk or any other additional liquid, however, the cake layers are always fluffy and anything but dry.
To make your keto cake moist, we suggest baking your cake layer in one baking pan (instead of dividing the batter between two pans). It might be more challenging because will require cutting the cake into two layers once it’s baked. However, by doing so, you’ll open up the ‘pores’ of the cake layer and it will help the moisture from the filling get deeper into the layers resulting in a moister cake that’s rich in taste.
To prevent your keto cake layers from sticking to the pan, it's crucial to properly prepare the pans before baking. In this recipe, we suggest using parchment paper and greasing it before baking. Make sure to grease the sides of the baking pan as well. For greasing, we use regular butter. This will make it easier to remove the cake layers once they're done baking, without leaving any stuck-on bits behind.
How to Make Sugar-Free Keto Cake Layers
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoon almond flour
- 4 tablespoon Monk Fruit sweetener
- 4 eggs
- a pinch of salt
- ⅓ orange zest
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 365°F (185°C). Prepare two 8.7-inch (22 cm) round cake pans by lining the bottoms with parchment paper and greasing the parchment paper and the sides of the baking pan with butter for easy removal.
- Separate egg yolks from the whites. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until well combined and slightly foamy. Add 1 teaspoon of the sweetener and continue whisking until very firm.
- In a mixing bowl, add the rest of the sweetener to the egg yolks and whisk until the volume has increased at least 2 times and the mixture turns light yellow.
- To the beaten eggs, add orange zest and almond flour. Mix well until everything is fully incorporated.
- Transfer the whisked egg whites to the bowl with the egg yolk mixture and stir lightly to combine.
- Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared cake pans. If you only have one baking pan, skip this step and bake all the batter at once – you’ll be able to cut the cake layer into two after baking.
- Place the pans in the preheated oven and bake for about 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean. If baking all in one pan, the baking time will increase to 20-30 minutes.
- Once the cakes are done baking, remove them from the oven and take off the sides of the baking pan. Then, turn the cakes upside down, remove the bottom plates of the baking pans and the parchment paper carefully. Place the sheets of the parchment paper that you just removed from the cakes onto the kitchen counter, the greasy side up, and transfer the cakes onto the sheet (basically, you’ll end up with the parchment paper placed on the opposite side of the cake). Let it cool for about 10 minutes. Then turn the cakes upside down again and remove the parchment paper.
- (Only when using one cake pan) Place the baked cake layer onto a flat and even surface and take a serrated bread knife. By holding the cake layer in place with your hand on top, cut the cake layer in half horizontally.
- You can either start assembling the cake right away, store the cake layers in the fridge, or even freeze to ensure you have the cake layers at hand when you’re ready to finish your cake.
Video
Notes
- The step with turning the cake upside down during cooling is crucial and will ensure your cake doesn’t sink in the middle. Don't skip it!
- We suggest using monk fruit sweetener which will ensure the right texture and won't leave any unpleasant after-taste.
- Using almond flour (without the addition of coconut flour) will ensure perfect texture and won't make the cake layers too dry.
- To make the cake extra moist, we suggest baking one thick cake layer at first and then cutting it in half horizontally.
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