This Keto Gingerbread Cake recipe is hands down my favorite dessert recipe and is insanely perfect for the holiday season! Gingerbread can be tricky on a keto diet since it usually requires molasses or brown sugar to get that deep flavor, but we found the perfect trick to achieving the deep flavor along with keeping it super low carb. Watch me make it below and serve it at your holiday dinner this year.
Our Secret To The Ultimate Gingerbread Recipe
I bet you’re itching for the secret to this recipe. Well, it’s browned butter! I was stuggling to find the perfect solution to this recipe until it dawned on me that all those times I burned the butter, and it has a delicious aroma, I was tossing it instead of using it for good. I figured if there was a perfect time to use the browned butter method, it was during the holiday season when all foods were not only brown, but rich, buttery and nutty or spiced! Trust me on this one.
If you are passionate about everything ginger-related, make sure to check out our Keto Gingerbread Cookies recipe you’ll definitely love!
The Perfect Low Carb Frosting To Top!
Not that this decadent, spiced cake needs more richness, but with it being holiday season and all we thought it was only perfect to top it with a cream cheese frosting! It’s simple to make and the perfect topping to all your desserts year round. You can ice the entire cake or just the top like we did and even get a little wild and add some spices to the cream cheese frosting. Double the recipe if you want to put some extra out on the table for those who like to indulge a little harder!
Holiday Keto Gingerbread Cake
I can’t imagine that a moist, rich, spiced cake with cream cheese frosting wouldn’t be all your dreams coming true this season, but if this isn’t your choice of dessert we’ve got plenty more to choose from. Check back next week for our almond ricotta cookies, but be sure to glance over lasts year pumpkin pie cheesecake and chocolate fudge cookies! Whether or not you’re a gingerbread fan we can almost guarantee everyone else at your holiday dinner will love this gingerbread cake, so be sure to make it for them!
Recipe can be quickly added to MyFitnessPal – Search “KetoConnect – Gingerbread Cake”
Gingerbread Cake
Ingredients:
Gingerbread Cake
- 1/4 cup browned butter
- 3/4 cup Coconut flour
- 3/4 cup Low Carb Sugar Substitute
- 4 large eggs
- 1/2 tsp Baking powder
- 1/2 tsp maple extract
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp allspice
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
- 1/4 cup butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup Low Carb Sugar Substitute
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp Pink Himalayan Salt
Instructions:
- Make the brown butter: heat a bottom heavy saucepan to medium-low heat and add the butter.
- Once fully melted combine with a spoon until it starts to froth over. This should take about 5-7 minutes. At this point it is important to keep an eye on it as it browns, but make sure it doesn’t burn. Once it gets a deep brown it is done – remove from heat.
- Strain the butter into a small bowl and set aside to cool.
- Grease a 8×4 loaf pan and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Make the cake: In a medium bowl combine the coconut flour, erythritol, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon and allspice. Combine with a whisk. Set aside.
- Once the butter has cooled, about 15 minutes, add the maple extract, eggs, and browned butter to a large bowl. Whisk together.
- In two batches add the dry ingredients to the wet and combine.
- Pour the cake into the greased loaf pan and bake for 43-45 minutes. Ovens vary in temp so do a toothpick test at 40 minutes!
- Allow the cake to cool for atlas 20 minutes prior to cutting, and if you are frosting it, allow it to cool completely prior to frosting!
- Make the Frosting: Using a hand mixer, cream together the room temperature cream cheese and butter until fully incorporated.
- Add the salt, vanilla extract and confectioner and cream together until combined.
- NOTE: we used 3/4ths of the frosting recipe on the gingerbread cake, which is reflected in the recipe!
Notes
Written by
Megha Barot
Megha has always been a passionate cook, but she took this to a new level after starting her keo journey in 2015. She loves creating new recipes and producing educational content for KetoConnect, which she co-founded in 2016 with Matt. Her passion for healthy eating and personal development continues to thrive. She's the proud mom of two awesome kids.
the cake was dry at first but after sitting overnight with frosting it became more moist. My non-keto family loved it so thats a win. I wonder if the recipe will work with almond flour?
Just took it out of the oven and had a taste, very dry and grainy. It did not rise at all. Had to take it out at 30 minutes because the edges were getting very brown and a toothpick test came out clean. I’m wondering if I should even take the time to make the frosting if the cake part won’t be good. Will it get better once it cools? The only difference in my recipe was that I used powdered swerve instead of granular, would that make much of a difference? Really disappointing bc I planned on having this tomorrow after Christmas dinner 🙁 I have the snowball cookies in the oven now, hoping for a better ending.
We are really racking our brains over here trying to figure out what went wrong, but the minute we do, we’re all over this! Thanks for letting us know so we can get better. Sorry this happened.
My gingerbread cake looks NOTHING like yours… it’s flat and dry…
oh no! we are trying to figure out what happened here on this one! SOrry about that!
I baked mine for 30 min. and it was a little bit dry – but it`s coconut flour, so I am not surprised. Made icing from erythritol, vanilla drops, cream cheese, ginger juice, lemon juice and lemon zest. Delicious, thank you for the recipe!
Cannot wait to try more recipes! Keep up a good work 😉
SO GLAD YOU LIKED IT! Welcome, and we can’t wait to cook something else up for you!
Can I use granulated erythitol in the icing?
it may be a bit grainy. We recommend taking granulated and coffee-grinding it
Dr.Axe ‘s keto website advises against Erythritol sweetener. Is there a way to substitute your recipes with liquid stevia or monk fruit in the raw ?
Sure!
There is no way this is right! You can’t possibly pour this batter into a pan! The batter is very dry & crumbles!
What did I do wrong??? No other liquid ?
It should be doughy, for sure.
Allspice is its own thing, not a blend of several spices. You can, however, prepare a blend that will make a suitable substitute if you don’t have allspice berries or powder, like so: (Makes 1 teaspoon)
1⁄2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1⁄2 teaspoon cloves, 1⁄2 teaspoon nutmeg
Mix together; you want equal amounts of the spices above or see note. Use according to your recipe. If you like a lesser amount of cloves and nutmeg, the formula is 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon cloves, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg.
Pour into the pan? Are you using the same recipe? With the amounts listed here, there was no pouring. Batter was more like a crumble topping than a cake batter. Thinking this is going to come out of the oven like a ginger-scented dried out sponge.
I’m not a novice baker. I could tell that the batter was too dry at the outset with the 1/4 C. of butter in the recipe and no other liquids besides the eggs… The entire project crumbled to pieces. Coconut flour is well known to suck up liquids like a sponge, and consequently it tasted like sawdust. What a waste of ingredients. I made the frosting anyway. Now THAT was fine.
Oh man, we have no idea why this is happening, and certainly hope we can get to the bottom of it! Thanks for letting us know!
Wondering if perhaps there’s a missing wet ingredient? Just made this is it was definitely not pourable.
It’s supposed to be doughy.
Thanks for the awesome recipes, making this today with one stick butter, lol…and tweaking the ingredients a bit. Since I’n not allergic to Almond I will use 1/2 cup of each Almond meal and Coconut flour, and adding Cardamom…will post if it turns out good…
My “batter” is more like crumbly cookie dough. Is that right? Does this not need any liquid?
It’s definitey a dough.
Hmmm I was able to load the comments- getting a bit nervous about the recipe now. I wonder if it is a half cup of butter rather than 4T and that’s what’s causing the dryness some complain of? Also- my coconut flour says 29g are 1/4 cup, with 17g total carbs and 10g of those fiber iirc. Does that sound in line with what you’re using/ measuring?
I can’t see any comments so maybe someone already mentioned this but allspice, which sometimes substituted with a mixture of other spices, is really it’s own spice:) I have a bag f it and hope to try this recipe soon! I’m using coconut flour that I also like to run through my blender to get it a bit more powdery, just like the powdered erythritol. Thanks for a tasty sounding recipe!
Hi,
The my cake batter came out doughy, is it supposed to be like that or should it be runny like regular cake mix?
Definitely doughy!
Thank you so much for this guys! It’s a game changer. So good!!!!
I want to take this chance to tell you guys what your blog has meant to me. I got diagnosed with type 2. I didn’t really know what to do. I felt like just giving up honestly. But I stumbled upon your deep dish pizza video on YouTube and looked up Keto while rolling my eyes at yet another “fad diet”. But holy crap. It’s great for diabetes!! Lol. So I started researching. Learning from you guys. And I can say three months later and I’m 40 pounds lighter, anxiety free, and my blood sugar levels are settled at healthy levels. My doctor has asked me to share my story with her newly diagnosed diabetic patients. Also got three friends on the lifestyle and they feel like their lives have changed also. Thank you so much!!! You guys are heroes!
What a phenomenal message! We are so excited for your success!!! Thank you for sharing your story, and for sticking with us for the ride!
Soooo, I made this today. IT TASTES delicious but it turned out like whipped frosting consistency and it’s SUPER dry. Any tips from anyone who has perfected it. I just want to make it look pretty 🙂 Great tasting recipe!
Do you think this could be rolled out and have cookies cut from it? Seems like a good dough consistency.
oh! Maybe frozen into a roll and then sliced like freezer cookies? If you try it let us know!
I made this tonight and followed the recipe and its DRY and crumbled apart when I took it out of the pan. Taste okay but in no way did this turn out looking like the picture. Just a mess
SO SORRY this happened. Not entirely sure what’s happening here. We’ll keep an eye out for possible mistakes and revise!
Just made this and have to be honest….so bad it went right in the trash. Back to Carolyn Ketchum and Maria Emmerichs recipes for me.