An incredibly moist almond flour cake with a velvety mascarpone frosting and topped with fresh berries. Gluten free, sugar free, low carb and so nutritious you could eat it for breakfast.
When it comes to grain free baking, I have two firm favourites: almond flour and coconut flour. But if I had to choose…. almond flour would always win.
So – what’s so great about almond flour and how do I use it in baking?
First of all, you can use it as a 1 : 1 replacement to wheat flour. Which can be very useful when you are converting old recipes to make them low carb and gluten free.
Secondly, it tastes GREAT. Traditionally, almond flour is often used in cookie recipes. But its mildly nutty flavour and fluffy texture is gorgeous in cakes and works well even for bread. Check out my popular almond flour bread – it is getting rave reviews!
With coconut flour, on the other hand, there will always be a slight coconut taste (which I don’t mind – but boy, some people can’t stand it).
This almond flour cake recipe is super simple. It is extra moist because of the yoghurt – which also makes it taste kinda fresh.
What are the different types of almond flour?
I used ground almonds in this sponge cake. Basically, ground almonds here in the UK are equivalent to regular almond flour in the US. It’s made from blanched almonds without skins.
Almond meal is a usually coarser and contains the skins – which are actually very nutritious and a great source of fibre. You could also use it in this recipe.
I have tried the cake with super fine almond flour, which is powdery and almost white in colour. I have tried it in this recipe but cannot recommend it. It absorbs more liquid than regular almond flour / ground almonds and I found the cake ended up being too dense.
How to make a super moist and fluffy almond flour cake – step by step:
- ) Beat your eggs until they’re fluffy and have increased in size.
- ) Add your wet ingredients and blend until well-combined.
- ) Add the dry ingredients and mix.
- ) Fill the dough into a well-greased springform and bake at 180 Celsius / 356 Fahrenheit for 30 minutes or until lightly browned.
- Once cooled, spoon over your mascarpone mix and decorate with berries. That’s it!
Recipe tips and variations
Prefer dairy free? Use coconut oil instead of the butter, coconut yogurt instead of the yoghurt and whipped coconut cream in place of the mascarpone.
Want to add a bit of zing? Grate the zest of a lemon into the batter.
Need to speed things up? Add a handful of berries directly into the batter (stir them in last). Then you can leave out the mascarpone frosting.
Like it Paleo? Replace the powdered sweetener with coconut sugar.
Insist on super fine almond flour? I recommend to reduce the amount to 3 cups for a moist result.
And last but not least… Prefer coconut flour?? Halve the amount stated for almond flour. For a stronger crumb structure, you could also add 1 tsp of xanthan gum.
More delicious almond flour recipes:
Tried this recipe? Give it a star rating below!
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Low Carb Almond Flour Cake
Ingredients
For the sponge
- 1 1/4 cups / 300 g natural yoghurt full fat
- 3 1/2 cups / 350 g almond flour NOT super-fine. Ground almonds work well, too
- 6 medium eggs or 5 large eggs
- 4 tbsp butter melted
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup / 40 g powdered erythritol
For the topping
- 1 cup / 250 g mascarpone
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp powdered sweetener or more, to taste
- handful of raspberries
- 150 g blackberries
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius / 356 Fahrenheit.
- Grease the sides of a 23 cm/9 inch diameter springform baking tin with butter and line the bottom with parchment paper.
- Blend your eggs until fluffy. Then add the yoghurt, 2 tsp vanilla and butter. Mix until well-combined.
- Then add the dry ingredients - baking powder, almond flour / ground almonds and sweetener. Blend until smooth and fill the batter into the springform pan.
- Bake for ca 30 minutes or until the top is browned and a knife inserted in the centre comes out clean.
- Blend the mascarpone cheese with 1 tbsp of sweetener and 1 tsp vanilla.
- Once the cake has cooled, spread the mixture on top and garnish with berries.
Notes
Nutrition
The post “Best Ever Almond Flour Cake” was first published in July 2016. It was re-published in May 2019 with a recipe change and more details such as recipe variations to reflect how we make this cake today.
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Natalya Arutyunova says
can I use stevia instead of erithrol?
Katrin Nürnberger says
Yes, of course. If you’re using granulated stevia, make sure it’s a 1:1 sugar replacement like erythritol. Some of the brands I have tried are 2:1 – twice as sweet. If you’re using liquid stevia, calculate the amount you’d need – normally, 4 drops are the equivalent of 1 teaspoon of sugar.
Natalya Arutyunova says
thank you so much!
Deborah says
Lovely cake! I was a little worried as I realized after I put it in the oven that I had not given a second thought to using Greek yoghurt and not the thinner traditional plain yoghurt when I made it. I am assuming you intended the recipe to use the thinner standard yoghurt, correct?
It came out well in spite of my error….a little bit more pound cake-ish, but still rose high and was very moist.
For anybody needing to make it as a half recipe (we are a family of only 2) cutting it in half worked well for me, and I baked it in a 6 ½ inch springform pan. I thought a 25 minute bake might be enough, but ended up needing the full 30 minutes probably due to the density.
Next time I make it I will thin my Greek yoghurt with a bit of water (probably 4 parts Greek yoghurt to 1 part water should do it) until it is the consistency of the standard yoghurt.
Katrin Nürnberger says
So glad the cake turned out well Deborah! And thanks for giving the baking duration for half the recipe, always so interesting and helpful for other, too! I did use plain regular yoghurt, I think it has around 3.8g fat, so it makes sense yours came out a little richer.
Rebecca says
Hi – could you replace the sugar substitute with coconut sugar?
Katrin Nürnberger says
Hi Rebecca, you can definitely do that.
Keki says
What Can i use instead of eggs?? I’m vegan
Katrin Nürnberger says
In vegan baking you’d use flax or chia eggs, or aquafaba – whipped chickpea water. However, I have not yet tried it in this recipe. I once made my sugar free banana bread as a vegan version by using aquafaba, however, the banana in it also helps to stick things together. My feeling is you’d need some xanthan gum as well for a stronger texture, and probably more fat (coconut oil). Maybe halve the recipe and do a test run before you commit to a whole cake. You don’t want it to fall apart.
Margaret says
Hi Katrin! I’m looking for a keto recipe to use for the almond cake layers in Italian rainbow cookies, AKA Neapolitan cookies, tricolor cookies, 7-layer cookies). In case you’re unfamiliar with them, these are made with three thin layers of almond cake (marzipan is an ingredient in the cake batter, and each layer is a different color – green, red, or untinted). The cake layers are stacked/sandwiched with jam. Then the stack is “frosted” with a coating of melted chocolate and cut into small squares or rectangles (like petits fours).
The very thin cake layers are extremely moist, and this recipe looks as though it might be an excellent keto replacement for that component of the Italian rainbow cookies, especially if I added almond extract to boost the almond flavor. Unfortunately, all the brands of almond flour I have found here in the US are of a “superfine.”
In addition to reducing the volume of superfine almond flour to 3 cups, is there anything else I can do to modify this recipe to compensate for the decreased moisture in the cake layers (because of the superfine almond flour)?
Many thanks for your help and advice!
Best wishes,
Margaret
Katrin Nürnberger says
Hi Margaret, your cookies sound fabulous! If you can only find superfine flour, I’d reduce the amount and maybe also double the amount of butter. Make a small test batch to see how it turns out!
Lynn Sharpe says
Instead of using butter how much coconut oil can u use??and what kind of natural yogurt??can u make this in a regular 9″ baking dish??cause I don’t have a spring form pan..thank u for sharing this recipe with us
Katrin says
Hi Lynn, I would use the same amount of coconut oil as stated for butter. I used firm full fat natural yoghurt (3.6%fat). And yes, you can make it in a regular 9 inch (round) baking dish.Just make sure you line it well with parchment paper/baking paper so you can lift it out easily. And don’t touch it until it’s completely cooled as almond flour baked goods tend to be quite fragile when hot.
Carol says
If I wanted wanted to make 1/2 of this cake, what size pan should I use?
Katrin Nürnberger says
Hi Carol, the smallest springform I have has an 8 inch diameter so I would use that. Or you could use larger ramekins if you have them!
Natalie says
Hiya — I baked for 30 minutes at 140 fan-assisted, and the outer perimeter of the cake was perfect, but the centre was raw. If I leave it in long enough to cook the centre, will the outside dry out? Forgive me if this is a silly question but I don’t have much baking experience. 🙂 I did the knife test about an inch and a half in from the outside, which is probably why I got a raw-centred cake!
BTW – I tried your chocolate Christmas cake last weekend and it came out perfectly on my first try, and was a big hit with everyone! Thank you.
Katrin says
Good to hear that the Christmas cake went down well! It sounds like your chocolate cake just needs a little longer in the oven. Having temperatures can vary, And it also depends on if you had it on the lowest shelf or in the highest. I would just leave it in another 10 minutes.
Anna Cardamone says
My friend cant have the Tapioca starch thats in the coconut yogurt, and she cant have dairy yogurt, just wondering if theres anything else that could replace them and it cant have sugar either
Katrin says
Hi Anne, I guess you could try using a can of coconut milk, with the liquid and the cream parts blended so the consistency would be similar to yoghurt.
Anna Cardamone says
I’m making a cake for someone who cant tolerate normal wheat flour, dairy or sugar because she gets really sick. So if I use almond flour, coconut yogurt , coconut oil, and coconut cream, would these ingredients be safe or are there hidden added sugars that I need to be careful of?
Katrin says
Almond flour and coconut cream and yoghurt contain a little amount of sugars from the carbs. Dairy contains lactose. But it’s only a very small amount of sugar, not comparable to the amounts wheat has. The berries on the cake will have the largest amount of sugar. Maybe you can ask your friend if she can tolerate berries, just to be sure.
Pam says
The cake came out very thick and was on the dry side and I followed the recipe Exact. Thought it was going to be a much thinner cake. I don’t know what went wrong
Katrin says
If you measured all of the ingredients then the only thing I can think of is that you might have used extra fine almond flour. This is more absorbent than ground almonds, as I have mentioned in the post, and would result in a drier cake.
Brianna says
How many slices does the cake make when considering the serving size of one slice in the nutrition facts? How big is one serving size slice?
Katrin says
Hi Brianna, I calculated on the basis of 12 slices. Hope this helps 🙂
Cathy says
This is a real nice tea/coffee cake…I used almond essence and raisins…very good without any topping but with jam, its even better.
Zsa says
Hi there
I’m dying to try this recipe. Please tell me, will it freeze?
Katrin says
Yes, it freezes well 🙂
Yamilet says
I made this cake for my little boy’s birthday and everybody loved it. I topped mine with coconut cream and fresh blueberries because those are my son favourites. I also added some fresh lemon juice instead of the vanilla and a few teaspoons of grated lemon zest to the mixture. I replaced the yogurt with plain almond yogurt because we do not tolerate milk well. Thank you for this delicious recipe, definitely will try it again for my husband’s birthday!
Wanda says
Katrin, I’m in Australia and yes it’s autumn, next month winter starts here.
The Almond Flour cake is so delicious, after a few days it’s much nicer, so decadent and moist.
Nearly all gone will be making it again this coming Saturday.
Wanda says
Well Katrin, it’s wow! such a delicious cake, the only thing that was different I used powdered Xylitol [because I want to use it up, I prefer erythritol] and I added frozen cranberries in the batter. It took well over an hour to bake, now I’m thinking it may have been the frozen cranberries that slowed the baking time. The top was well browned, so in the end I covered it with baking paper. I made the mascarpone topping and added thawed cranberries, so tasty very yummy, rave reviews from everyone.
I took your advise to make it because i was going to make the cornbread but I didn’t have the double cream and asked you if I can use plain natural yoghurt you said you’ve made the Almond Flour Cake with yoghurt….so that’s what I did and I’m so happy I did.
Next I’ll the your cornbread recipe.
Katrin says
So glad it went down well. And I love it that you used cranberries in May! I’ve been eating pumpkin porridge for breakfast the last few days, so delicious, and also a fall/winter food. We seem to be on the same wavelength 😉