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.
Instructions
- ) 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 teaspoon of xanthan gum.
More almond flour recipes
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Recipe
Low Carb Almond Flour Cake
from Sugar Free LondonerNote: The servings slider only changes the first amount in each line and not any subsequent amounts. Please make your own calculations where necessary.
Ingredients
For the sponge
- 1 ¼ cups / 300 g natural yoghurt full fat
- 3 ½ cups / 350 g almond flour NOT super-fine. Ground almonds work well, too
- 6 medium eggs or 5 large eggs
- 4 tablespoon butter melted
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- â…“ cup / 40 g powdered erythritol
For the topping
- 1 cup / 250 g mascarpone
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon 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 teaspoon 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 tablespoon of sweetener and 1 teaspoon 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.
Anna Cardamone
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
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
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
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.
Cathy
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.
Yamilet
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
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
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.
Swati
Hey I tried it was beautifully moist, however I guess I have a sweeter tooth than you and just the cake without the mascarpone and berries tasted non sweet. Perhaps can increase the sweetener? What do you think ?
Katrin
Of course you can increase the sweetener, just use as much as you think you need! 🙂
Lindsay GRIPTON
Best. Cake. Ever.
Jo storry
I made a half recipe of this a week ago and put it into a muffin tin which made 10. I added a grated lemon rind to the recipe and added some mushed raspberries into the mix instead of doing the cheese/berry topping. Very nice they are. Unexpected use of them was when I had a hot cereal craving the other morning - I crumbled up one of the cupcakes, poured a mix of boiling water and cream over it and mushed it up. I also added a bit of toasted coconut into it. And it became a lovely, creamy hot cereal breakfast. Am going to always keep some in the freezer now for this purpose.... and will try the same with the orange and almond cake.
Esther
Can I make the cake overnight and then decorate it the next morning? Does it need to be kept in the fridge the whole time?
Katrin
You could definitely do that, and the cake would look fresher and better that way, too. If you just leave it out for one night because your fridge is packed, in my book that's fine, as long as you keep it in a cake tin or cover it up somehow. I hope you'll enjoy it!