Who Needs Flour with our Flourless Keto Chocolate Cake?
Keto flourless chocolate cake is a low carber’s best friend. Omitting flour completely in these dense, rich low carb cake recipes eliminate gluten and cut carbs drastically! You barely have to make any other changes to the recipe when you are able to take out this high carb ingredient.
Throw chocolate into the mix and you’ve got yourself a decadent dessert that will impress even the biggest chocoholic. Because flourless cake recipes don’t use any flour and barely rise at all, they can be a little denser than a regular cake. In order to make our cake a little more fluffy and light, we decided to separate the eggs we used and fluff them up. Both parts of the egg were beaten until more than doubled in volume. The egg yolks were beaten until pale yellow and the egg whites until stiff peaks formed. This helped give our cake a bit of lightness among the dense chocolatey goodness (don’t worry, they will still be super chocolatey!). The more gentle you are when folding the egg whites into your cake batter, the airier the cake will become.
We had a bit of a heavy hand when it came to folding in the whites so we ended up with a denser flourless chocolate cake than we initially dreamt of, but it tasted amazing none-the-less. So, if you want that dense texture in your chocolate cake, just mix the batter a little more!
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For this low carb flourless chocolate cake recipe, make sure to use unsalted butter and unsweetened.. pretty much everything. Unsweetened cocoa powder is an absolute must and unsweetened chocolate is also ideal. If you can’t find unsweetened chocolate, look for a keto brand of chocolate like Lily’s which sweetened their chocolate chips with erythritol. I also love to have Lily’s chocolate’s on hand just for snacking on when that chocolate craving hits. A guilt-free chocolate bar that I can pop in my mouth is totally necessary!
If you only have semisweet chocolate, you will need to omit the erythritol by at least half and adjust your macros accordingly. Semi-sweet chocolate can work in a pinch but unsweetened or keto-friendly chocolate is ideal.
Speaking of macros, each slice of this amazing flour chocolate cake will amount to only 2 net carbs! Perfect for those late-night chocolate cravings! It is almost unbelievable that this much flavor can have so few carbs. We know that this is going to be your go-to chocolate ket dessert- it really is incredible.
You can enjoy this sugar-free chocolate cake warm, with a scoop of sugar-free ice cream or whipped cream! It’s equally as enjoyable when it’s cold out of the fridge. How do you like to eat your cake?
If you loved this recipe, you might like the version of keto chocolate cake from Simply So Healthy. Unlike ours, it uses almond flour but is completely keto-friendly and absolutely delicious!
| Servings: servings |
- 4 oz. unsweetened baker's chocolate
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup So Nourished erythritol sweetener (separated into 1/2 cup, 1/4 cup, 1/4 cup)
- 3 eggs (separated)
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp salt
- Preheat your oven to 300°F. Set up a double boiler to melt your baker's chocolate and butter together. If you don't have a double boiler set up, just use a pan on low heat.
- Once the chocolate and butter are melted and combined, add in half a cup of erythritol and stir until dissolved. This may take a while so be patient and keep the flame low!
- Once that's ready, set it aside while your prepare your eggs. Separate 3 eggs and beat the egg whites until they're foamy. Slowly add 1/4 cup of erythritol while beating the egg whites. They should turn glossy and form stiff peaks.
- Clean off your beaters and beat your 3 egg yolks with the last 1/4 cup of erythritol. They should double in volume and turn a pale yellow.
- Add your buttery chocolate mixture to these pale yellow egg yolks and stir to combine.
- Add in 1/2 cup of cocoa powder and combine. Add the vanilla and salt in this step as well.
- Now add a third of your egg whites at a time and fold them in gently. Repeat until all the egg whites are evenly distrubited. Do not over combine or you may deflate the egg whites too much.
- Spray a spring form pan with cooking oil and pour your chocolate cake batter in. We laid our pan on a sheet of aluminum foil to catch any stray oil that seeps out. Bake for 35 minutes.
- Dust with powdered erythritol and enjoy!
Loved this recipe? Let us know! Something didn’t quite turn out right? Ask us in the comments below or contact us– we respond to comments every day and would love to hear from you and help you out! And check out all our low carb desserts to learn to make more delicious and healthy meals!
NUTRITIONAL DISCLAIMER
The content on this website should not be taken as medical advice and you should ALWAYS consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. We provide nutritional data for our recipes as a courtesy to our readers. We use Total Keto Diet app software to calculate the nutrition and we remove fiber and sugar alcohols, like erythritol, from the total carbohydrate count to get to the net carb count, as they do not affect your blood glucose levels. You should independently calculate nutritional information on your own and not rely on our data. The website or content herein is not intended to cure, prevent, diagnose or treat any disease. This website shall not be liable for adverse reactions or any other outcome resulting from the use of recipes or recommendations on the Website or actions you take as a result. Any action you take is strictly at your own risk.
You’ll Love Our Dessert in Five Cookbook!
We believe that the key to success is simplicity and satisfaction with your diet. That’s why we created Dessert in Five – 30 low carb dessert recipes all using just 5 ingredients and 5 net carbs or fewer!
Enjoy strawberry cheesecakes, brownies, coconut cream pies, raspberry Danish cookies and much more every day of the month.
Dr. Rosmy Barrios, MD is an aesthetic medicine specialist whose work focuses on patients who are treated for obesity, metabolic syndrome, and other weight-related issues through nutritional analysis, keto diet programs, and supporting medications.
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I made this for Valentine’s and it was fabulous! I want to make one for my birthday but I’m having a sweetener issue! I can’t remember what I used last time, I have Xylitol and Truvia but it’s difficult to get hold of Swerve over here. Which do you recommend? Xylitol still has carbs but behaves like sugar, but Truvia is sweeter… help!!
We use pure erythritol in most of our recipes! We find it’s the mildest of the sugar alcohols and the lowest on the glycemic index. Truvia is a blend of erythritol and stevia so I would reach for that one if given the chance.
How much Truvia would you suggest using, given that the packet says that 1 teaspoon Truvia has the sweetness of 3 tsp sugar?
3 tsp = 1 tbsp, 16 tbsp = 1 cup. So if you use 16 packets, that should equal a cup of sugar in sweetness. Since erythritol is only 70% as sweet as sugar, you should use a bit more Truvia. Although we usually use a 1:1 conversion for simplicity’s sake and to not make things overly sweet. We are trying to train ourselves off super sweet things 🙂
Let me know how the cake turns out. Send a pic or tag us on any social media!
Can I use the confectioners swerve instead of the granular?
Sure, just know that the conversion will be different. A cup of confectioners Swerve will not be the same as a cup of granulated. It’ll be much sweeter!
Each tsp of swerve has 5g of carbs, so each serving in this cake has 30g of carbs coming only from the swerve, there is as well carbs coming from dark cocklate and from cocoa..
We list the net carbs, not total carbs. If you count total carbs, which includes sugar alcohols and fiber, please be sure to calculate on your own for the total carb count.
How far in advance can you make this flourless chocolate cake? Thanks 🙂
This cake will keep for a few days in the fridge. Some friends said they like it a lot better once it has cooled down and set for a while in the fridge. Some desserts are just better chilled overnight!
Baker’s chocolate over here is ridiculously expensive can I use the recipe on here for low carb chocolate and make my own instead or does it have to be cooking by chocolate? I have some but it is about 1.8g of carb per 10g I have had mixed luck making my own but do like to try
You can use any chocolate you like, just make sure it’s low carb 🙂 Baker’s chocolate is 100% cocoa so it’s preferred.
Hi what size pan do you use for this cake? Looks delish! Can’t wait to try it!
9 inch pan 🙂 I will update the recipe! Let me know how you like it!
What size pan?
Our spring form pan is 9 inches.
I just baked this cake. So far it looks good (havent eaten it yet, thats for tonight while everyone else is eating high carb birthday cake). It was oily when right out of the oven, but its settling. I just have one question, When do you add the cocoa powder, salt and vanilla? I followed the directions and didnt even think to look at the recipe and forgot to add them in. I dont think it will be a big deal, but I would like to know for next time I make the cake. Thanks Gale
Step 6 🙂 if you skipped the cocoa powder, that might be why the cake was a bit oily. Ours was slightly oily, but like yours, it set once it was out of the oven.
This cake is absolutely delicious! It really, really satisfies my sweet tooth. I do admit that the cake looked oily on top when I first took it out of the oven, but once it cooled it was fine. I like to eat it with some whipped cream on top and raspberries on the side.
One tip I recommend is turning up the aluminum foil so that it’s more like a bowl around the cake pan, or else the oil drips out and into the oven which can cause the smoking some users mentioned.
Thanks for the tip Kayla! Glad you enjoyed the cake!
Mine turned out hard as a rock, I was really disappointed. Is it supposed to turn out the consistency of cake? Maybe my oven is hot?
Hi Laura, I’m really not sure what could have happened. Even after refrigeration, ours was still soft and smooth. It is not as light and airy as a cake, it’s denser yet creamier. Maybe try whipping the egg whites more and folding in gentler? I hope I was of some help!
Did I miss the step on the instructions to add the vanilla and salt? I didn’t see it in the instructions and forgot to include it. Still turned out really good.
Yes, it should have been written in with the cocoa powder step. Thanks for pointing that out! I’ll add it in 🙂
I followed the recipe. Used Kelly gold butter. Mine looks oily. Still trying to cook it. Hope it gets done. No smoking like the other post that stated hers was oily. Will the oil evaporate as it finishes cooking? It is the consistency of moist dough right now. Like your pic in step 7.
Try adding a bit more cocoa powder, it may soak up the excess oil!
Just took this out of the oven and “tested” some crumbs-OMG! It it soooo delish! I plan to serve it with whipped cream and a drizzle of raspberry sauce for dessert for company tonight. Awesome recipe!
Sounds heavenly!
How many total carbs does this cake have. I don’t trust net carbs.
Could I replace the erythritol with baking stevia?
Hey April, is your baking stevia a cup for cup ratio with sugar or erythritol? If so, it should be fine! Otherwise, losing a whole cup of erythritol to a few pinches of stevia extract may be a problem!
I’m not sure if this cake turned out right. I followed the directions and it looks oily. How do you know when it’s done? Also, while it was in the oven, smoke was filling the oven. Is this normal?
Hmm, it sounds like your oven may be a lot stronger than ours maybe? I would suggest lowering the temperature a bit. Another option would be to reduce the butter used by 2 tablespoons or so.
Also, what kind of chocolate are you using?
that looks amazing – and you’re right, who does need flour! not in a chocolate cake anyway..
Thanks Helen!