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It was my birthday yesterday and I decided to make myself a guilt-free Low Carb Chocolate Birthday Cake. My favourite type of cake has always been a gluten free Black Forest cake and I wish I could make one, but it's a little difficult with the weather here. Last year I tried to make one, but it's unfortunately way too hot in Japan for whipped cream to survive more than 2 minutes outside the fridge in summer.
The cake I made last year ending up melting right away so I decided it to play it safe this year and come up with a new recipe. The reason I like Black Forest Cake is because cherries are my favourite fruit. I've always loved cherries with chocolate, actually just any type of berries with chocolate so I decided to go with a berry filling.
The filling is actually whipped heavy cream blended with some crushed raspberries. I wanted it to keep it on the lower carb side which is why I didn't use cherries in the filling. The outside layer is a homemade buttercream icing made with Swerve Confectioner's sugar, which is just powdered erythritol.
I started making this cake three days ago because I wanted it to be perfect. On Sunday night, I first attempted to make the chocolate cake. My first two versions used coconut flour as the base and boy did I hate them. I just really hate coconut and I don't usually use it in my recipes, but I thought it would be nice in cake. Don't get me wrong, the cakes tasted awesome, but I didn't like the dry and coconuty feeling to them so I came up with a better recipe that only uses almond flour.
My third try for the chocolate cake was absolutely perfect! Because I decided to do a raspberry whipped cream filling, I made sure to make the sponge a day earlier so that it would have time to chill in the fridge. I didn't want the cream to melt under any circumstances!
On Monday I filled it with the heavy cream and covered it in the buttercream icing. On Tuesday morning, I decorated it with some cherries, melted chocolate from Lily's and some pretty flowers. I didn't include the cherries and chocolate in the nutritional information because the way you decorate it will depend on you.
By the way, I recently bought this awesome cake slicer that lets you cut the cake perfectly evenly! It was totally worth it as my cake turned out perfect!! You just put your knife in the tool on both ends and all slices of your cake will be cut even. Anyways, I turned 27 years old yesterday and I spent a nice quiet day with my darling at home. We made a BBQ inside the house with an in-house grill type of thing and it was awesome!
I hope you enjoy this cake as much as I did! My boyfriend didn't even know it was sugar-free or gluten-free as it tasted just like a normal cake!
Low Carb Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
Chocolate Sponge
- 4 tbsp refined coconut oil
- 56g/1.97oz lily's chocolate chips
- 6 egg yolks
- 60 ml unsweetened almond milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- ¼ cup/60g erythritol
- 1 cup/120g blanched almond flour
- ½ tsp xanthan gum
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1.5 tsp stevia powder
- ¼ cup/30g cocoa powder
- 6 egg whites
Raspberry Whipped Cream
- 200 ml heavy cream
- ¼ tsp stevia powder
- ¼ tsp vanilla
- 100 g raspberries
Buttercream Icing
- 1.5 cup/375g unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 1.5 cup/210g Swerve Confectioner's
- ⅜ tsp stevia powder
- 1.5 tsp vanilla
- 6 tbsp heavy cream
- 2 egg yolks
Instructions
Chocolate Sponge
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F
- Separate the egg whites and egg yolks. Place the egg whites in a large bowl and beat until stiff peaks form.
- Place a heat-proof bowl over a small pot filled with a bit of water and add the coconut oil to it. Simmer the water and melt the oil. Add the chocolate chips and stir until melted over low heat.
- Take the bowl off the pot. Add the egg yolks to the melted chocolate and mix for a minute using a hand mixer.
- Add the almond milk and vanilla and continue mixing. Add the erythritol and mix for 30 more seconds.
- In a separate large bowl, sift the almond flour, xanthan gum, salt, baking soda, baking powder, stevia and cocoa powder.
- Add the sifted dry ingredients to the chocolate mixture and mix with the hand mixer until well incorporated.
- In 3-4 batches, fold the whipped egg whites into the chocolate batter until it's fluffy and foamy without big air bubbles. The batter shouldn’t be too thin or runny.
- Oil a 22cm/9in cake pan with a loose bottom. Pour the chocolate batter into it and place in the oven. Bake for 45 minutes, or check with a toothpick the middle of the cake to make sure it's perfectly cooked.
- Let the cake cool down perfectly and place in the fridge once cooled. You can slice it in 2-4 slices the next day once it's perfectly nice and cool.
Raspberry Frosting
- In a large bowl, add the heavy cream and beat on high with a hand mixer. When the cream is almost whipped, add the stevia powder and vanilla.
- In a small bowl, crush the raspberries with a fork. Fold in the whipped cream until the cream becomes pink in colour. Place the bowl in the fridge to let the cream stay cool (if it's summer and the inside temperature of your house is 38C/100F like mine haha).
Buttercream Icing
- In a large bowl, beat the butter until fluffy. Add the Swerve Confectioner's and stevia powder. Continue to beat until well incorporated. Add the vanilla and heavy cream and continue mixing until nice and creamy. Lastly, add the egg yolks and continue to beat for a few more seconds. You should have a nice yellow buttercream by now.
- Leave it in the fridge until ready to use or it may melt (if the inside temperature of your house is 38C/100F like mine haha)
Assembling the cake
- Cut the cake in 2-4 slices depending on how many layers you want.
- Put your cake on your preferred plate or cake stand.
- Add your buttercream to a piping bag attached with a round tip. Pipe some of the butter cream around the outside of the chocolate cake layer. This ensures that each layer will be equal in filling and that the whipped cream won't come out of the layer once assembled.
- Add ⅓ of your raspberry whipped cream inside the buttercream circle on the cake. Level out with a spatula.
- Place the second slice of the chocolate sponge and repeat.
- Repeat with the third slice.
- Cover with the fourth slice and spread the leftover buttercream icing all over the sides and top.
- Spread it everywhere evenly with an icing spatula.
- Decorate your cake as you wish. I personally drizzled a bit of melted chocolate over and decorated with pretty flowers and some cherries.
Notes
Nutritional information is provided through calculations made on fatsecret.com. They are approximate only. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the nutritional information given for any recipe on mypcoskitchen.com. Sugar alcohols are included in the fiber count. Net carbs are the total carbs minus fiber (which include sugar alcohols).
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Mindy
I made this cake today but made changes. I wanted a straight chocolate cake so I omitted the raspberry filling and adjusted the icing for a 3 layer mini-cake. I added coco to the icing ingredients. I also used Lakanto sweetener instead of using Swerve or Stevia. I used less sweetener in the cake so it would be more coco tasting and the icing was the sweet part. WE LOVED this recipe and will keep it for future cakes.
Na
Hi, I tried to make the cake (only the chocolate sponge) twice but both times it turned out to be not sweet at all! I changed the stevia and the erythritol to a different brand the second time but didn't help. Can you think of anything that I may not be doing right? I'm fairly new when it comes to using sugar substitutes.
The brands of *important* ingredients I used:
- Erythritol: Now Foods (1st time), Swerve granular (2nd time)
- Stevia: Skinnygirl Stevia Organic Extract Blend (1st time), Sweetleaf Natural Stevia (2nd tme)
- Chocolate chips: Enjoy Life Dark Chocolate Chips (1st time), Krisda Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (2nd time)
- Cocoa Powder: Fry's Premium Baking Cocoa Unsweetened
(I posted another comment first but I guess that didn't go through the filtering since it contained multiple amazon links)
Thank you in advance!
Mira
Hi Na, the erythritol you're using is correct, but the stevia isn't. The skinnygirl one contains dextrose and stevia, which isn't as sweet as pure stevia extract (300x sweeter than sugar) and dextrose is sugar so you'll still be adding carbs and raising your blood sugar levels. Sweetleaf stevia is an extract, but their extract isn't really 300x, more like 150x. I tend to have to double recipes that call for sweetleaf. I recommend using stevia from either NOW, wholefoods, or Nunaturals as I know they're exactly 300x sweeter.
The chocolate chips are fine, both still have sugar in them so the sweetness should be there. Cacao powder is also fine. I think it's really the stevia that you're having problems with.
Na
Thank you so much for replying! I will definitely try again with the stevia brands that you mentioned. Just to clarify one thing, did you mean the brand "Wholesome" instead of "Wholefoods"?
Mira
I mean the brand from the supermarket Wholefoods.
Angelina Lily Wahyu Wulandari
WOWW IM SO LIKE THIS (:
Jessica
It took a lot of work but this was seriously the best low carb cake I've ever made. THANKS SO MUCH
Lisa
I would love your recipes converted to US measurements please. Thank you.
Mira
I put cups and ounces in there, so it's already in US measurements.
Lisa
Hi Mira, sweetie. I converted the ml's to oz's using a metric chart myself. Why are you using one pan and slicing the cake into layers? Do you only have one pan? I have 3 or 4 to make the layers. My husband is making this cake, as I am handicapped and unable to cook myself. I just don't want it to seem so daunting to him.
Thanks again,
Lisa
Mira
Hi Lisa, by using one pan I can make sure each layer will be exactly the same heigh and even. If I used different pans, I wouldn't bake it as long and the layers will get big and won't be equal and even.
Sarah
Can you use other fruits than raspberries ?
Vera
Hello! Tnks so much, going to make this cake for my b-day!
Just 1 question: can i substitute the Xanthan Gum for something else?
Mira
I haven't tried making it with anything else! The xanthan gum helped it stay together and not be all crumbly.
Pavleta
Hi, great recipe! Can I ask if we could use some gelatin instead of the gum? It could also help, I guess? :))
Mira
I haven't tried to be honest! Let me know if it works!
Jayde Matheson
I made this cake, and when I took it out of the oven in looked amazing...as I let it cool it became very flat 🙁 Not sure if this is common. I definitely couldn't cut it into 4 layers..2 at the most.
Mira
Hi Jayde, sorry that happened! It's the first time I hear that happens to the cake! It's never happened to me and some other readers who've made it. It could be the almond flour or baking powder. I hope you enjoyed the cake though!
J Piersan
This was amazing! I made this cake for a birthday and it was by far the best-tasting low-carb and sugar-free dessert we have ever had! Before now, I had never made any low-carb dessert that everyone actually liked (kids included), and I'd never made a layer cake in my whole life, so thank you so much for perfecting this fantastic recipe!
Mira
Thank you so much! It takes time but it's totally worth it haha