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Ever wished for a keto cake that tastes as fabulous as it looks, without all the carbs? With my vanilla low carb cake recipe, you absolutely can! It’s got three moist layers, that classic yellow cake flavor, and creamy cream cheese frosting. Plus, I love that I can make the batter all in one bowl. I think this is the perfect keto birthday cake. Make it with me for your next special occasion!
Why You Need My Keto Cake Recipe
- Moist, fluffy, and sweet – To me, the best keto cake is about the texture, as well as sweetness without any weird aftertaste. So many of them are dry! This one is extremely moist and fluffy, with a light, tender crumb, and a sweet vanilla flavor. What you won’t taste is any bitterness or cooling effect — I can’t stand those!
- Keto friendly and gluten-free, but also family friendly – With only 2 grams of net carbs per slice, this cake fits perfectly into your keto lifestyle without feeling like you’re missing out. But with a large cake like this, I think it’s just as important that you won’t be the only one wanting to eat it. My family and friends happily do!
- Great for any occasion – I first made this recipe as a keto birthday cake, but have since served it for other holidays as well. It’s a great keto dessert for any celebration you have coming up.
Ingredients & Substitutions
Here I explain the best ingredients for my low carb birthday cake recipe recipe, what each one does, and substitution options. For measurements, see the recipe card.
Keto Cake:
- Low Carb Flours – I use both my Wholesome Yum Blanched Almond Flour and Wholesome Yum Coconut Flour for this recipe, because the texture turns out so much better than using one of them alone. The almond flour is particularly important because many brands are too coarse and will leave your cake grainy, and in fact this is why I created the Wholesome Yum version. YMMV with other brands! Steer clear of almond meal as well, which is the worst for texture. If you want a cake that uses just one of these flours, browse my other almond flour recipes or coconut flour recipes for other options.
- Besti Monk Fruit Allulose Blend – My go-to sweetener for every low carb cake I make, and there’s a reason. Not only does it taste and bake like sugar, it keeps your cake super moist. I’ve tried so many other sugar substitutes, and the result is much more dry (sometimes even gritty) with most brands. If you still want to use something else, check my sweetener conversion chart to get the right amount.
- Unsalted Butter & Salt – I add salt separately to control the flavor, but feel free to just use salted butter. If you’re dairy-free, coconut oil is a decent stand-in, but keep in mind, it’ll change the flavor and texture a bit. Oh, and you’ll need to find a dairy-free option for the frosting, too!
- Eggs – You need a lot because of the coconut flour. I have a list of egg substitutes here, but with the number of eggs in this keto cake recipe, I don’t think they would would work here.
- Almond Milk – You can use store bought or my homemade almond milk, just make sure it’s unsweetened. You can also swap in other keto-friendly milks, like coconut milk beverage (the liquid kind from a carton, not the thick kind from a can) or watered down heavy cream.
- Vanilla Extract & Baking Powder – I like this brand of vanilla and this non-GMO baking powder.
Cream Cheese Frosting:
- Cream Cheese – Go for the full-fat stuff if you can; it’s richer and just works better with the keto cake.
- Besti Powdered Monk Fruit Allulose Blend – Unlike other powdered sugar alternatives, this one dissolves completely (read: no gritty texture!) and is truly as fine as powdered sugar. Others can crystallize, too, so I highly recommend using this one.
- Butter & Vanilla Extract
Free Printable: Low Carb & Keto Food List
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Frosting Variations:
Not a fan of cream cheese frosting? You can make my keto buttercream frosting for something more classic, or keto chocolate frosting if you want a contrast to the vanilla. Throw on some sugar free sprinkles for a little extra fun!
How To Make Keto Cake
I have step-by-step photos here to help you visualize the recipe. For full instructions with amounts and temperatures, see the recipe card.
- Cream the butter and Besti. Use a hand mixer to beat them in a large mixing bowl, until fluffy.
- Add the wet ingredients. Beat in the eggs, almond milk, and vanilla extract.
- Add the dry ingredients. Beat in the almond flour, coconut flour, and baking powder. The batter will be pretty thick — this is normal!
- Bake until golden. Divide the batter among 3 lined cake pans (I prefer springform pans for easy release). You won’t be able to pour it, so just spoon it in and smooth the top. After baking, let your cake layers cool completely.
- Make the frosting. While you wait for the cakes to cool, beat together the cream cheese, butter, powdered Besti, and vanilla extract in a large bowl, until smooth.
- Layer, layer, layer. Place one layer on a cake stand or platter and spread frosting on top. Repeat with the other two layers. Finally, frost the top and sides of your keto cake.
- Top with chopped pecans. My cake looked prettier with the nuts on top, and I didn’t have to obsess about making the frosting perfectly smooth. But, if your frosting skills are better than mine, feel free to skip the nuts and decorate the top however you like!
This low carb cake is tall, very rich, and filling, so I usually slice it into very thin slices for serving, but did slightly larger ones for these pictures. Here you can see the texture once you slice into it:
My Recipe Tips
- Use room temperature ingredients. Especially the butter, eggs, and almond milk. Your butter won’t cream properly if it’s cold. And if your eggs or milk are cold, they’ll solidify the butter as soon as you add them.
- Be careful not to overmix the batter. Overmixing can make the cake dense instead of light and fluffy, which is definitely not what we’re going for.
- Don’t forget to scrape down the sides of the bowl. I always recommend this, but especially here since we’re making this batter all in one bowl. If you don’t mind extra dishes, you could mix the dry ingredients separately first to reduce the amount of scraping you have to do.
- This keto cake is fragile, so I recommend springform pans. They make getting the layers out so much easier! You can use regular cake pans if that’s what you’ve got, though.
- Don’t have 3 pans? You can definitely make this keto cake recipe in 2 pans instead, or even a larger 9×13 pan for a sheet cake, like a reader asked me recently. (The baking time will vary, so you’ll need to check on it.) I don’t recommend waiting for layers to bake one at a time, though. I used to do this, but the baking powder isn’t effective in the batter sitting that long, so no longer do it.
- Rotate and swap the positions of the pans halfway through baking. Since you’ll have 3 pans in the oven at once, they’ll bake more evenly if you do this. Be quick, so you don’t let too much heat out!
Keto Cake (Very Moist, Easy Recipe)
By
This easy keto cake recipe is so rich, sweet and moist, that no one will guess it's low carb (2g net carbs per slice). Perfect for birthdays!
Ingredients
[ See substitutions ]Tap underlined ingredients to see the ones I use.
Keto Cake:
Cream Cheese Frosting:
Instructions
[ See step photos See my tips ]Tap on the times in the instructions to start a kitchen timer.
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Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C). Line the bottoms of 3 9-inch (23-cm) round springform pans with parchment paper.
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In a large bowl, use a hand mixer to beat together the butter and Besti, until fluffy.
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Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then the almond milk and vanilla extract.
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Beat in the almond flour, coconut flour, baking powder, and salt.
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Divide the batter among the 3 prepared pans and smooth the tops with a spatula. Bake for 18-22 minutes, until the top is lightly golden and springs back.
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Meanwhile, make the frosting. In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, butter, powdered Besti, and vanilla extract, until smooth.
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Let the keto cake layers cool separately to room temperature before stacking. Frost between the layers, and all over the top and sides at the end. Top with chopped pecans (optional) if you like.
Did you make it? Leave a review or tag me @wholesomeyum on Instagram!
Maya’s Recipe Notes
Serving size: 1 slice, or 1/24 of entire recipe
- Tips: Check out my recipe tips above to help you avoid dense cake, keep your batter smooth, and options for different types of pans.
- Store or make ahead: You can make the whole keto cake birthday cake in advance and refrigerate until the day-of, or just store any leftovers. Either way, your cake will last up to 3 days in the fridge.
- Freeze: You can freeze this cake for up to 3 months. Place freeze it uncovered on a sheet pan first, uncovered to protect the frosting. Once solid, wrap in several layers of plastic wrap and foil to freeze long-term. Before serving, unwrap the layers and thaw in the fridge overnight.
- Note on nutrition info: The optional pecans are not included in the numbers below.
I provide nutrition facts as a courtesy. Have questions about calculations or why you got a different result? Please see my nutrition policy.
Add Your Notes Your Notes
Try More Of My Recipes
© Copyright Maya Krampf for Wholesome Yum. Please DO NOT SCREENSHOT OR COPY/PASTE recipes to social media or websites. We’d LOVE for you to share a link with photo instead.
Keto Cake
More Keto Cake Recipes
If you like this keto birthday cake, you might also like some of my other low carb cake recipes:
678 Comments
Deborah
0It is excellent…best low carb cake I have ever made…..a keeper.
Kate
0Oh goodness. I just mixed up my recipes. Disregard the last message. I do want to make this vanilla cake and want to know if there might be a substitute for the almond flour that will work just as well. Perhaps Pamela’s nut flour? Thank you.
Maya | Wholesome Yum
0Hi Kate, I haven’t tried it with Pamela’s nut flour, but in theory a nut flour blend could work. Just needs to be very finely ground. Let me know how it goes for you.
Kate
0I am very excited to try this recipe for my 60th! I’d like to make half a cake a head of time just to be sure it’ll be good for the big party. Can I use powdered dry milk in place of the whey?
Emily E.
0Thanks for the recipe! Can this be made in a bundt pan??
Maya | Wholesome Yum
0Hi Emily, I haven’t tried that, but I’m sure you can make it in a bundt pan.
Megan
0I just made this cake (my first attempt at a low-carb cake), and I’m certain I did something wrong. Every layer is very crumbly. I had a pretty difficult time frosting in, the cake was coming apart I’m chunks. I made sure to measure everything and had fresh ingredients, so just not sure what I did wrong.
Maya | Wholesome Yum
0Hi Megan, Sorry to hear you had issues with it. I’ve made it many times and never had this issue, but it’s hard to say what went wrong without being in the kitchen with you and seeing what the process was like. Did you use parchment paper? Was the batter mixed well enough? Did you watch the video? At what point did it go differently for you?
Valeri
0Could I add food coloring if I’m attempting rainbow layers for St Patrick’s Day?
Maya | Wholesome Yum
0Hi Valeri, Sure, you can!
Sandy
0Thanks. I tried your recipe last night. It tasted really good. I was wondering where you inputted the recipe to get the nutrition facts. I inputted just the cake on Very Well Fit and got three times the total carbs (15.3 g). Any assistance with this would be great before I have a friend of mine who is diabetic and counting all carbs try the cake.
Thanks
Sandy
Maya | Wholesome Yum
0Hi Sandy, I’m glad you liked the recipe! Nutrition info comes from the USDA Food Database, which is more reliable than 3rd party calculators. Unfortunately I can’t troubleshoot 3rd party calculators, but the nutrition info on the recipe card is correct.
Rohan
0Can I substitute almond milk with normal dairy milk?
Maya | Wholesome Yum
0Hi Rohan, Yes, you can, but that would increase the carb count.
Nathalie
0H! I’m ready to make this amazing cake, however; I could only find Stevia in the raw. So not sure how to measure the amount. (on the package is says 1 cup Stevia equals 1 cup sugar) Please advise.
Wholesome Yum L
0Hi Nathalie, you can check this sweetener conversion chart to figure out measurements. I would not recommend using a granular sweetener for the icing though.
Beth
0What is the nutrition on just the cake without icing?
Maya | Wholesome Yum
0Hi Beth, Sorry, I don’t have the nutrition info available for just parts of the recipe. You can enter ingredients into an online calculator if you leave something out.
Mark Roth
0My wife (her birthday) absolutely LOVED this cake! She’s new to lower carb type foods and I think this really opened up her eyes to the possibilities!
Used heavy whipping cream vs the almond milk – no dairy issues & nutrition seems pretty equal.
Linda E Fairham
0The Cream cheese frosting is so delicious! I never thought that I’d like 0 calorie sweetener but the powdered erythritol in this recipe tastes great.
Joanne
0Is it really 8 eggs am I reading this right?
Maya | Wholesome Yum
0Hi Joanne, Yes, that’s correct.
Diana
0How many grams is in one serving of cake?
Maya | Wholesome Yum
0Hi Diana, Sorry, I don’t weigh the final cake or individual servings. You can find out the weight of one slice, if you need it, by weighing the whole cake and dividing by the number of slices. Or just weigh one slice.
Dee
0Does this cake hold together? Or does it fall apart? If it does not hold together well, do you think a little xanthan gum or konjac powder would work ?
Maya | Wholesome Yum
0Hi Dee, It does hold together, but if you want it more sturdy you can add about 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum.
Nikki O
0I have made this recipe multiple times! I have made cupcakes from this recipe too! Very good and simple too! the frosting is sooo good!
Rachele Leone
0Hi can I sub oil for the butter to make it dairy free?
Maya | Wholesome Yum
0Hi Rachele, You can use coconut oil.
Mel R
0Hi I’m looking to make this tonight as a birthday cake, can I use ground almonds instead of blanched almond flour?
Maya | Wholesome Yum
0Hi Mel, I don’t recommend that as the texture won’t be as good. It will still bake okay, but the texture will be less cake-like and more multi-grain-like.
Kevin
0Please answer this in the next 5 minutes, lol. I put the whole mixture into the baking pan instead of coming in 3rds. Teach me to not read it properly! Is this going to run the cake or will it turn out ok if I just bake for longer?
Maya | Wholesome Yum
0Hi Kevin, I try to answer as fast as I can. 🙂 You can bake it for longer, but it will probably brown on top too much before the inside is set. You’ll likely need to cover it then and continue baking until the center is done. Then, if you want the layers, you’ll have to carefully slice it horizontally into the layers, which can be challenging but is doable. I do prefer the 3rds baked separately since you get more of those golden edges, but the way I described should still work. Hope it works out for you!
Kara Wilson
0I need a substitute for coconut flour. I can’t stand coconut or almond flavor. Hopefully it won’t taste like almonds?
Maya | Wholesome Yum
0Hi Kara, I don’t think this tastes like coconut or almonds. I don’t recommend leaving out either of the flours, it won’t turn out.