Almond Flour Low Carb Carrot Cake

A moist, dense double layer almond flour low carb carrot cake that is also gluten free and grain free. Each thick piece is under 500 calories and only 6 net carbs.

Almond Flour Low Carb Carrot Cake

I can’t remember the last time I baked a low carb carrot cake. Come to think of it, I’m not sure if I ever have before! All the carrot cakes I remember eating throughout the years were the regular sugar loaded ones.

So needless to say, a carrot cake was added to my list of recipes I wanted to recreate. Yet carrots do add some carbs and a small amount of sugar to the cake. But, it’s not a large increase in carbs or sugar for me to not make carrot cake.

[clickToTweet tweet=”A double layer #lowcarb and #glutenfree carrot cake. Under 500 calories and 6 net carbs per slice!” quote=”A double layer #lowcarb and #glutenfree carrot cake. Under 500 calories and 6 net carbs per slice!” theme=”style1″]

Plus, carrots are rich in several vitamins such as Vitamin A, Vitamin K, biotin, etc. And a little over a half a cup of baby carrots, yields around 275% of your daily value of Vitamin A. And this recipe calls for a little over half a cup of carrots.

Just like traditional carrot cake recipes, I wanted mine to taste close to the real thing. When I was creating this low carb carrot cake recipe, I knew I wanted a brown sugar flavor because it’s key in carrot cake recipes. Using regular sugar free sweetener just doesn’t compare in flavor for this cake.

But since I was already adding carrots, I didn’t want to add more sugar using blackstrap molasses to achieve that flavor. I thought about adding brown butter extract, but I didn’t think it would achieve the taste I was looking for. Not without the addition of blackstrap molasses anyways.

Instead, I decided to use Sukrin Gold. It’s a sugar free alternative replacement for brown sugar that tastes convincingly like brown sugar. The main ingredient is erythritol, which is made from glucose extracted from non-GM cornstarch through a natural fermentation process.

And, Sukrin Gold has less than 1 calorie per teaspoon, is gluten free, and does not affect blood sugar or insulin levels. Which makes this a great addition to any sugar free pantry. You can find Sukrin Gold and other Sukrin products on Amazon.

I know that some tradition carrot cake recipes like to add unsweetened applesauce to the batter to increase the moisture. Which isn’t a terrible idea if you can find a low carb apple sauce, but I didn’t use it for this low carb carrot cake. I increased the moisture to the batter by added a half a cup of unsweetened almond milk.

For this cake, I decided to use exclusively almond flour. Unlike my sugar free cocout flour layer cake, I wanted to experiment more using almond flour. And I typically like to combine almond flour and coconut flour in recipes like cakes and muffins.

The flour you can try for this recipe is Bob Mills Super Fine Ground Almond Flour. I’ve baked a few recipes with this brand so far, and I’m definitely liking the results. You can find the super fine almond flour at a local Walmart store or online.

So far, the basics I’ve figured out using almond flour include using one large egg per cup of almond flour. And somewhere between a quarter cup to a third cup of unsalted butter per cup. You can easily overdue the butter in almond flour recipes, so you have to be careful.

What’s great about using almond flour in baking is that you don’t have to use as many eggs as coconut flour. Almond flour also contains a good amount of moisture. So you shouldn’t really have a problem where moisture is concerned.

As for my spices of choice, I kept it traditional to flavor the low carb carrot cake. I used cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and allspice. This was the first time using allspice in a low carb carrot cake recipe. As a result, the cake had a nice addition to the flavor.

Another thing some people like to add in their carrot cake includes adding ground cloves. Yet I didn’t add any cloves to this carrot cake. Mostly because when I was testing recipes, I didn’t even think about it.

But I liked the carrot cake just the way it turned out. The taste is soft and dense, flavorful and lightly sweetened. I don’t like my carrot cakes to be overly sweet.

I think the job of adding more sweetness is using a good cream cheese frosting. And I kept the frosting recipe simple with just cream cheese, butter, heavy cream, vanilla extract and Sukrin confectioners sugar. Since this is also a double layer cake, I made two cakes and added frosting in the middle.

For the cakes, I equally separated the batter into two 9-inch cake pans. The battered was nearly two cups of batter for each cake pan. I also well buttered the pans with a nonstick spray.

If you have trouble getting the cakes out of the pans, use a spatula to help loosen the sides. And then, flip over with a cutting board on top of it to catch it. I then set each layer cake aside.

Ideally, you should separate the cakes from the pan when almost fully cooled. It just makes it a lot easier to get the cakes out without any issues. Nothing like a broken cake to have to deal with.

Enjoy this cake during the upcoming holidays, or even use it as a birthday cake. Personally, I just wanted to create a low carb carrot cake to add to my collection of desserts. I’m enjoying this right as I type with a side of coffee flavored with sugar free french vanilla – yum!

NUTRITION: Whole cake vs. 12 slices