Keto Lemon Pound Cake – paleo + gluten-free
Learn how to make keto lemon pound cake! An easy coconut flour cake with a delicious buttery texture and tangy lemon flavor.
This delicious keto lemon cake contains only 3.9 grams of net carbs per slice, and it is a delicious treat to pair with a cup of my bulletproof coffee for breakfast.
Hello, fellow baking lovers and keto sweet teeth! Are you ready for some buttery keto pound cake today? I can’t think of a better afternoon tea cake than this keto lemon cake recipe.
Honestly, lemon and tea make the best combo. You will impress all your friends at teatime with this recipe. There is no need to be on a keto diet to appreciate the moist and buttery texture of a keto lemon cake.
A glazed lemon pound cake was the first recipe I learned to bake as a kid. French lemon cake is a classic in my French culture.
That is why today I am sharing a coconut flour lemon cake recipe. My all-time favorite cake flavor with special thoughts to my diabetic mum, who I know will be the first to enjoy this recipe.
Is the lemon pound cake keto?
Absolutely! By using only keto-friendly ingredients such as almond flour and coconut flour, this keto pound cake has only 3.9g of net carbs per slice!
Are you new to Keto?
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How to make a keto lemon pound cake?
This lemon keto cake recipe has only a few ingredients and steps to follow. It does not require fancy pieces of equipment or ingredients, and you will quickly make this recipe in 15 minutes. First, let’s have a look at what you need.
- Eggs – a delicious buttery and moist pound cake has eggs. Please stick to the recipe and do not try to substitute eggs in this recipe.
- Almond flour – you can also use almond meal if desired. To learn more about keto flour, read my keto flour guide!
- Coconut flour – as always in keto baking-uses fresh flour with no lumps for perfect results.
- Coconut oil – or butter if preferred.
- Lemon juice – fresh is the best if you can. Lemons are great keto-friendly fruits!
- Lemon zest – this is optional. I recommend you use untreated organic lemon if you intend to use the zest. This avoids adding nasties to your cake. A few drops of lemon extract also work!
- Sugar-free crystal sweetener – as always I love to use crystal Monk Fruit sweetener but powdered erythritol or Xylitol are great options. Check out my review of keto-friendly sweeteners to convert from one to another.
For a different perspective on this recipe, watch my web story: making the keto lemon pound cake.
How to bake with coconut oil?
Next, let’s talk about the most important part of this recipe: ingredient temperature. While this is a very straightforward keto lemon pound cake recipe there is one trick!
You must use eggs at room temperature. In fact, baking with coconut oil involves using ingredients at room temperature. The reason is pretty simple, coconut oil gets solid under 24C (76F).
It means that if your eggs are straight out from the fridge they will create lots of coconut oil lumps. The best is to store your eggs out of the fridge the day before or at least 4 hours before making this recipe.
Otherwise, use melted butter instead of coconut oil. This will not happen with butter.
For more tips on never failing a keto recipe, have a look at my keto baking guide, I share in this ebook all my tips and secrets to never fail a recipe!
Can I freeze this low-carb lemon cake?
Of course, you can freeze this almond flour pound cake. First, slice the whole cake into 16 slices. Then, freeze the keto lemon loaf into a ziplock bag or in an airtight container.
Make sure the slices do not overlap, it makes it easier to defrost one by one. Finally, defrost your slices the day before at room temperature.
The next day, toast the slices into the toaster if you like. Of course, if you freeze your sugar-free lemon cake with the frosting on top don’t bring it to the toaster.
Enjoy plain or spread some sugar-free jam on top.
Is this keto lemon pound cake healthy?
This is probably the healthiest coconut flour lemon cake recipe you will find around. Let me tell you why. First, it is sugar-free, low-carb, and dairy-free, yes eggs are NOT dairy.
Dairy products come from bovine animals it only includes milk, cream, butter, and cheese. So, this keto lemon pound cake is dairy-free meaning it is easy to digest.
Next, it is a high-protein cake perfect to serve at breakfast or for a fulfilling afternoon tea. Proteins keep you full for longer and you won’t feel hungry after one slice.
Finally, it is a gluten-free lemon cake high in fiber from coconut flour. Fibers are part of healthy gut health and stabilize blood sugar levels.
More keto baking recipes to try
We all love a good piece of cake and I have plenty of other delicious keto cake recipes for you to try.
Enjoy the delicious paleo lemon cake recipe and if you make this don’t dig in too fast. Take a picture of your creation and share it with me on Instagram.
XOXO Carine
Recipe Card
Keto Lemon Pound Cake
Ingredients
- 5 Eggs at room temperature
- ¾ cup Erythritol or xylitol
- ½ cup Coconut Oil or melted butter
- 2 cups Almond Flour
- ¼ cup Coconut Flour
- 1 tablespoon Baking Powder
- ¼ cup Lemon Juice
- ½ tablespoon Lemon Zest optional
Lemon glazing
- 1 cup Sugar-free powdered sweetener
- 2 tablespoons Lemon Juice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F). Line a 9-inch x 5-inch loaf pan with a piece of parchment paper. Slightly oil the paper to make sure the pound cake doesn't stick to the pan. Set aside.
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar-free crystal sweetener, melted coconut oil (or butter), and lemon juice. Ensure that your coconut oil is not burning hot, or it will 'cook' the eggs and create lumps. All your ingredients must be roughly at the same temperature, think room temperature, especially the eggs and lemon juice. Cold ingredients just out of the fridge will solidify the coconut oil creating oil lumps. Otherwise, use melted butter to prevent this to happens. Set aside.
- In a different large mixing bowl, whisk together the almond flour, coconut flour, and baking powder. Stir to combine the flours evenly.
- Pour the liquid ingredients onto the dry ingredients.
- Stir all the ingredients together with a baking spoon until it forms a thick cake batter with no lumps. Combine for at least 2 minutes to make sure the coconut flour fiber absorbs the moisture.
- Transfer the cake batter onto the loaf pan. Make sure you are using the same loaf pan size, or it will impact your baking time.
- Place the loaf pan in the center of your oven and bake at 180°C (350°F), fan-forced mode, if you can, for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, decrease the temperature to 160°C (320°F) and cover the loaf pan with a loose piece of foil. This will prevent the top from burning, and the middle will bake slowly. Keep baking for 45-60 minutes in total, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the pound cake comes out with little to no crumbs on it.
- Cool for 10 minutes in the loaf pan, then lift out the pound cake from the pan using the parchment paper.
- Transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely. It is a thick cake, and it usually takes 3 hours to fully cool. Be patient and add the lemon glazing on the cake when it reaches room temperature, not before!
Lemon glazing
- To make the lemon glazing, whisk together the sugar-free powdered erythritol with lemon juice until no lumps remain. If needed, add more lemon juice to get a thinner glazing or more powdered sweetener to get thicker glazing.
- Drizzle over the cooled pound cake.
- You can place the cake for a few minutes in the freezer to set the glazing if too runny.
- Store your cake in the pantry on a cake box for up to 3 or 4 days. Slice before serving to keep the cake moist.
- Enjoy as breakfast, teatime, plain, or with sugar-free chia seed jam.
How to freeze your pound cake?
- Slice the cake into 16 slices before freezing. Freeze the cake in an airtight box, making sure the slice doesn't overlap, or place a piece of parchment paper between each slice to make it easier to defrost individually. Defrost the slice the day before at room temperature, on a plate, don't overlap the slices.
- The next day, you can toast the slices in a toaster before serving.
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Disclaimer
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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This turned out pretty good. Very good alternative to the full sugar version.
I would like to make the Keto lemon pound cake but I do not want to use Erythritol or xylitol. Could I use maple syrup or honey instead, and if so, how much? I would like to make a cake frosting consisting of fresh lemon juice, coconut oil & maple syrup or honey. Will this work? Can you help me?
You can use any other granulated sweetener like coconut sugar but not a liquid sweetener – it will dilute the batter and make the cake too moist.
Can I use this recipe for mini cakes? How would the baking time vary?
I didn’t try that but I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t work. Baking time depends of size of your cake, not sure what you mean by mini. I recommend you check baking time after 20 minutes by inserting a pick in the center of the cake, when it’s dry, it’s ready to remove form the oven.
I made the recipe with a couple tweaks. I subbed the lemon juice with water and instead of any lemon zest or flavouring I did 2 tsps almond flavouring, I also subbed the coconut oil for butter. The result was a delicious treat similar to Boterkoek, a dense, moist, Dutch almond butter cake which my diabetic mother in law can’t eat. She loved it! I tried a slice and I can honestly say it didn’t taste like a diabetic dessert. It tastes delicious!
So i made the cake, and WOOOW. so unbelievably good. I doubled the amount of lemon zest up to 1 TB and I think the next time i make it, i will maybe try even up to 1,5 or 2 Tablespoons of zest to make it reaaally lemon. Bless you and recipes and your sharing. You rock!
Thank you so much !
Can I used half baking soda and half baking powder.keti lemon pound cake
Probably, I didn’t try feel free to experiment
Do I have to line with parchment paper or could I just spray with cooking spray? Thank you.
It’s better to avoid the cake to stick to the pan ! keto baked goods tend to stick more than regular wheat based recipes.
I considered myself a pretty good baker until we started low carb. Now I feel like a total rookie and have made one failed recipe after another. It is so discouraging to waste the time and not get something edible, not to mention the cost of ingredients. But, when I cut into this cake I felt a bit a joy because the texture seemed sooo perfect. Could it be??? First bite…I swear if you had been in the room I would have hugged you!! So happy, with the taste and texture, just like I had hoped. I also made your cinnamon gummies and love your variation of sweetener that I mixed up for that. So chin is up and I’ll be sticking around! THANK YOU!!
I hug you back then! Thank you so much for believing in my keto baking recipes. Enjoy them all! Carine
This was amazing! I followed your recipe to the letter (adding the optional lemon zest) and it came out so good! I can’t decide which I like more about it, the bright lemony burst of flavor, the dense and creamy texture or the pretty slices it made. Easy to make and so good!
I had to change things up a bit, since I didn’t have all of the ingredients. But it came out AMAZING! I’ve been doing Atkins for 15 years (just when I need to lose, seasonally). It’s the best coffee style cake I’ve tried 🙂 My changes were 18 packets of Splenda (since I didn’t have any fancy alternative), 4 extra large eggs instead of 5 large, I used butter only, and almond flour only. It’s fabulous!
What should I replace If I don’t want to use lemon juice?
Same amount of almond milk or water.
This recipe is a divine!! I used mixed nut flour ( from Walmart) in place of the coconut flour and Earth Balance soy free butter.I am over the moon tickled with the taste and texture.
Imma try the original recipe next week. Thank you for sharing.
I tried this recipe but I only used coconut flour 3/4 cup and baked it for 45mins. It’s so good and lemony. Thank you for this recipe!
Cake itself is not very lemony but with the icing or glaze on to it is very good! We will make this again!
My dessert
Soooooooooooooooooo good!!! I made it for my friend’s birthday; she is watching her carbs and sugar. I did it EXACLTY as the recipe says and I will make it again for sure!!
I made this recipe for the first time the other day, and I could not be more pleased. Thank you so much for this. It’s a game changer.
Hello Carine,
I just wanted to tell you that your recipes are so fabulous that they make living the keto lifestyle much more interesting and fun. I very much appreciate how much time you must spend on recipe development, not really knowing how to do it myself, and I look forward to trying all of your wonderful recipes!
Thank you so much ! Glad you found my blog, Enjoy the recipes. XOXO Carine
Thank you once again for another fabulous, sugar-free recipe! This was our Easter dessert this year. I served it with fresh strawberry sauce (chopped strawberries macerated with Lakanto granular) and it was a hit with my family. So good, thank you!
Thank you for this lovely feedback!
I wanted to thank you for this! I havenhad desserts in month and I loved this lemon loaf just like my favorite from Starbucks.
The onnly thing is I ate at night and I had
a lot of acid reflux heartburn and scalded tongue, could this be for any of the ingredients?
Thanks!
I am happy you love the recipe. I am not a doctor so I can’t recommend on health issue, acid reflux often comes from the combination of food you eat in a day, it’s hard to tell if it’s because you eat this cake or other food in the day.