Keto Cinnamon Coffee Cake
An easy, moist, buttery keto cinnamon coffee cake topped with a sweet, crunchy walnut streusel. The best low-carb breakfast cake to pair with your morning coffee!
Read on to learn how to make this excellent keto cake!

Coffee cake rhymes with cinnamon, and sweet, buttery crumbs because streusel on top of coffee cake is the best part!
What’s A Coffee Cake?
A coffee cake is a simple buttery sponge cake typically made of two layers of buttery crumbs, one in the center of the cake and on top of the cake.
A keto coffee cake recipe is about making a keto cake that resembles a coffee cake without carbs!
How To Make Keto Coffe Cake
You can whip up this keto coffee cake with ease, using only simple low-carb ingredients.
Ingredients
Bonus, this gluten-free coffee cake can also be made dairy-free with very few adjustments. Keep reading my tips to make this recipe paleo-friendly too.
- Almond flour – fine blanched almond flour provides the best texture. You can also use ground almonds or almond meal, but these options tend to leave a gritty texture to the batter. Learn more about how to choose keto flours!
- Coconut flour – while you could make a keto coffee cake with almond flour only, I don’t recommend it. Let me explain why. The tiniest amount of coconut flour gives the cake sponge a moist texture. In fact, if you want to swap coconut flour with more almond flour in this healthy coffee cake recipe, you will have to use 4 times more! This means you will use 1 additional cup of almond flour to reach the same texture (compared to 1/4 cup of coconut flour). The result will be a very dense, gritty, and heavy keto cake.
- Grass-fed butter or coconut oil if you want to make a dairy-free coffee cake. Is butter keto? Learn about it in my review of dairy products.
- Erythritol or other sugar-free crystal sweeteners like allulose or Monk fruit stevia blend
- Baking powder – a great substitute for baking powder is baking soda. As a rule of thumbs, always use half amount of baking soda to substitute baking powder in keto cakes recipes. So, here replace the 2 teaspoons of baking powder with 1 teaspoon of baking soda.
- Salt – it acts as a flavor enhancer in keto cake recipes, so if you watch your sodium intake, you can make the recipe without salt. It will still work. That said, we need extra sodium on the keto diet, so I always like to add this extra pinch of salt to my keto cakes.
- Vanilla extract
- Unsweetened almond milk – or if you wonder how to make the coffee cake moister, swap the milk for cream! I recommend heavy cream or coconut cream if you eat dairy-free
Baking Coffee Cake
You can bake this coffee cake on fan-forced mode or regular mode but whatever the mode you are using, make sure you don’t bake over 350°F (180°C).
This is because the recipe uses almond flour, and this low-carb flour browns faster than wheat flour.
Also, for coffee cakes topped with crumbs, it’s better to bake the cake on rack 2, counting from the bottom of the oven. It’s basically the rack below the center rack.
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This is the best option to prevent the cake crumbs from browning too fast.
Makeing The Keto Cake Streusel
I used to love Starbucks coffee cake toppings, and I would eat this with my fingers before even eating the cake.
This said, classic coffee cake crumbs are loaded with carbs, including wheat and sugar, so they are not keto-friendly at all.
Ingredients
To make the keto coffee cake top layer, I use the following ingredients:
- Almond flour
- Chopped walnuts – you can use any other keto-friendly nuts like almonds, macadamia, pecan, or hazelnuts.
- Erythritol
- Melted butter or coconut oil
- Instant coffee – yes, there is coffee in the old classic coffee cake recipes like the one created in the US back in the 1800s. Nowadays, you will rarely find any coffee in coffee cakes but trust me, that little addition brings out all the cinnamon flavors of this low-carb cake.
A Low-Carb Birthday Cake
The best time to serve coffee cake is for breakfast. It makes a delicious, fulfilling breakfast, and your black coffee will enhance the flavors of this keto cake.
Some delicious diabetic-friendly breakfast toppings to add on the cakes’ side or top are full-fat coconut yogurt. This is pure coconut cream, so it doesn’t have sugar or lactose.
Other sugar-free toppings ideas are unsweetened whipped cream and sugar-free glazing.
Making The Coffee Cake Batter
First, measure all your ingredients in small bowls, ensuring all the ingredients are at room temperature, especially the eggs.
Make space on your benchtop to split the cake batter ingredients from the streusel toppings ingredients so you won’t get confused.
Then, start by making the streusel dough and set it aside while you prepare the cake batter.
This gives some time to the streusel coffee cake ingredients to blend their flavors. Next, prepare the cake batter by combining the wet ingredients with the dry.
Finally, assemble the coffee cake following this layering rule:
- Evenly spread 2/3 of the cake batter.
- Sprinkle 1/2 of streusel dough all over and slightly press with your finger to stick the streusel to the batter.
- Spread the leftover cake batter. It’s ok if it mixes up with some of the bottom layer streusels.
- Sprinkle leftover walnut streusel toppings.
For another way of viewing this recipe, watch my story: making the Cinnamon Coffee Cake.
How to store your streusel coffee cake?
You can store this easy keto coffee cake in the fridge for up to 3 days. Otherwise, keto cakes are easy to freeze.
Use an airtight container and leave some space between each slice to make sure they don’t stick to each other. Defrost on the counter overnight.
More Keto Cake Recipes
If you love keto cakes or if you are after a keto birthday cake recipe, I recommend you also try my:
Made this diabetic cinnamon coffee cake recipe yet? Share a picture with me on Instagram. I love to see your creations,
Recipe Card
Keto Cinnamon Coffee Cake
Recipe Macros
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Ingredients
Keto coffee cake batter
- 2 cups Almond Flour
- ¼ cup Coconut Flour
- ⅓ cup + 2 tablespoons Erythritol or sugar-free crystal sweetener of choice like xylitol, allulose
- 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 3 large Eggs at room temperature, not cold
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract at room temperature
- ½ cup Unsalted Butter or melted coconut oil
- ⅓ cup Unsweetened Almond Milk at room temperature, not cold
Cinnamon streusel topping
- 1 cup Almond Flour
- ⅓ cup Erythritol
- ⅓ cup Unsalted Butter or melted coconut oil
- 1 tablespoon Ground Cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon Ground Nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons Instant Espresso optional
- ½ cup Chopped Walnuts optional
Sugar-free glazing – optional
- 1 cup Sugar-free Powdered Sweetener
- 2 tablespoons Unsweetened Almond Milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a 9-inch square cake pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
Prepare the cinnamon streusel
- In a medium-size mixing bowl, combine all the streusel ingredients. The order doesn't matter until it forms a cinnamon crumble. Set aside at room temperature while you make the cake batter.
Prepare the coffee cake batter
- In a large mixing bowl, stir together almond flour, coconut flour, baking powder, erythritol, and salt.
- In another medium-size bowl, beat eggs with melted butter (lukewarm not hot, or the butter will 'cook' the eggs), unsweetened almond milk, and vanilla.
- Pour the liquid ingredients onto the dry ingredients and combine with a spoon until it forms a thick batter with no lumps. You can also use an electric beater, on low speed if desired.
Fill in the cake pan
- First, spread evenly half of the coffee cake batter into the prepared cake pan.
- Sprinkle half of the cinnamon streusel on top of the cake batter, then spread the rest of the coffee cake batter on top of the streusel. As you spread the rest of the cake batter, it will mix some of the streusels you added below, and that is ok.
- To finish, sprinkle the rest of the cinnamon streusel all over the top of the pan. Slightly press with a spatula to stick the streusel to the cake batter.
- Bake 30-40 minutes or until the cake is golden and a skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
- Cool it down for 10 minutes in the cake pan, pull the parchment paper pieces to lift out the cake from the pan easily, and transfer onto a cooling rack for 1-2 hours or until it reaches room temperature.
- When the cake is at room temperature, drizzle the sugar-free glazing on top of the cake. To make the glazing, combine the sugar-free powdered erythritol and unsweetened almond milk into a small bowl until it reaches your desired thickness. Add a bit more powdered erythritol for thicker glazing.
- Cut into 16 squares and serve for breakfast or snack, with a dollop of unsweetened whipped cream (or whipped coconut cream, if dairy-free) and a cup of coffee.
Storage
- Store in the fridge in a cake box for up to 3 days or freeze for 3 months. Defrost 4 hours before at room temperature.
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The recipes, instructions, and articles on this website should not be taken or used as medical advice. You must consult with your doctor before starting on a keto or low-carb diet. The nutritional data provided on Sweetashoney is to be used as indicative only. The nutrition data is calculated using WP Recipe Maker. Net Carbs is calculated by removing the fiber and some sweeteners from the total Carbohydrates. As an example, a recipe with 10 grams of Carbs per 100 grams that contains 3 grams of erythritol and 5 grams of fiber will have a net carbs content of 2 grams. Some sweeteners are excluded because they are not metabolized. You should always calculate the nutritional data yourself instead of relying on Sweetashoney's data. Sweetashoney and its recipes and articles are not intended to cure, prevent, diagnose, or treat any disease. Sweetashoney cannot be liable for adverse reactions or any other outcome resulting from the use of recipes or advice found on the Website.
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I made this coffee cake twice. The first time I used the optional coconut oil instead of butter. I didn’t like it at all. I used the butter the second time. It tasted much better
Can I use all coconut flour instead of almond flour?
No sorry you can never swap one for the other, coconut flour has 4 times more fiber and dry out food consequently. You usually need lot more eggs and liquid to bake with coconut flour only.
Hello. I just made this cake, thanks for the recipe. I was wondering, is the photo on this blog the actual cake from this recipe? I used exactly the same flour (brand and measurements) and my cake came out a kinda brown color. Your picture looks like an gorgeous white/yellow cake.
Of course, all the photography on this blog are the one from the original recipe. You can also watch the recipe video and you will see that the cake come out yellow as well. If yours come out dark in the center it can be because you swirl the cinnamon sugar too much into the cake or you used almond meal instead of ultra thin almond flour.
Really enjoyed the blog. Thank you for writing this. You’ve got a lifetime fan.
Mine is coming out to 6 net carbs. Did I do something wrong?! I see that almond flour has a lot of net carbs
Make sure you enter the same serving, 16 and that your app doesn’t includes carbs from erythritol. Sugar alcohols are not counted as net carbs. Enjoy the cake, XOXO Carine
Such a good and tasty cake. Also very easy to make! Thanks for the recipe.
Hi! Do you have any idea how many this would make if you made it into muffins? Thank you!
I would say 12 regular muffins but I didn’t try so it’s an estimation. Enjoy, XOXO Carine
It was good don’t get me wrong but I seemed to have trouble spreading the cake mix first in the pan and then on the crunch layer. Did anyone else have this problem? It just seemed like there needed to be more cake batter. I also added a little cinnamon and nutmeg And vanilla to the batter as well.
Do you mean the batter is too dry ? Happy to help, Let me know ! Carine
Every bite of this cake was like heaven in my mouth. Thanks for this wonderful recipe!!
Can I use a little xanthan gum in this recipe? I use it in cookies but not sure if it will work in this coffee cake?
You can but I am not sure why you want to add it here, it’s not necessary, the batter hold very well without it. Enjoy! XOXO Carine
Great recipe! Difficult to eat only one slice
Delicious! This is my second time making this and it always hits the spot. I recently had to go dairy free while breastfeeding, so I subbed all butter for coconut oil and it actually came out good. Very slight coconut taste but I was using unrefined. The only crystallized sugar I had on hand was xylitol, so I used a little bit less (since xylitol is sweeter than erythritol). Will definitely be making this again, huge hit! Thank you!
Hi Carine! Thank you for sharing this recipe!
I made this with almond meal and really liked the texture!
I made it last night, turn out this will be my favorite cake .
xoxoxo
Love you ,
Sai from Thailand
Thank you so much Sai!
Can i make this vegan with flax egg replacemet?
Oh no I am sorry, you need the eggs in this egg, it doesn’t work with flaxegg. Enjoy, XOXO Carine
this is very good.I have been on keto 2 months now. I notice with almond flour that cookies, scones etc are hard to swallow. I always have water around so I will not choke(grandson choked on my scone).Do you or anyone else have this problem?
Usually people notice this with coconut flour more than almond flour since coconut flour has 4 times more fiber than almond. The reason is, both flours are high in fiber, highly liquid absorbent so it can give the feeling you describe sometimes. That’s why you should always hydrate well on keto diet and may be eat small bites to avoid the ‘choking’ you describe. Enjoy, XOXO Carine
Hi!
We’ve done this with coconut sugar instead of erythritol and it’s come out delicious.
We aren’t keto dieters but just prefer to eat clean.
The only comment I got was that it wasn’t sweet enough for people. Do you think I could increase the sugar quantity in the cake part without affecting the consistency?
Thanks!
Coconut sugar is less sweet than pure erythritol that is why you don’t feel the same sweetees swapping one by another. You can boost the sweetness with few stevia drops or increase coconut sugar by 1/3 cup. Enjoy the recipes on the blog, XOXO Carine
Great, hubby loved it as missed his coffee cake. Thanks for a great recipe.
It looks so good! Do you think I can make it in cupcakes? Thank you!
It should work indeed, Enjoy, XOXO Carine
Great idea, then you already have your serving size, especially if you want to freeze. That is of course if you double batch this.😉
any comments on time/temp with muffin size? look great!! thanks….
It usually bake faster in muffin size, you will be able to make 12 muffins with the recipe and it should bake in 30 minutes
Delicious! Turned out perfectly! The coffee in it makes it. Thank you! It’s a keeper.
Thanks for the lovely feedback! I am glad you love it, XOXO Carine