This sugar free Christmas cake is moist, rich and utterly delicious. It is a flourless chocolate torte that is sweetened with dates and erythritol. The perfect dessert for a holiday meal.
Are you in for an indulgent treat? This spiced chocolate cake is going to knock your Christmas stockings off. It is superbly delicious yet very easy to make.
This is one of the first recipes I posted on the blog. I still bake it once every year, always in December. It has a firm place in my holiday baking, alongside the low carb stollen, my gluten free panettone, these keto mince pies and the low carb Christmas pudding.
The recipe contains festive spices such as cinnamon, cardamom and cloves, which makes the kitchen smell divine while it it is the oven.
This cake is made with a small amount of dates, which contribute to the moist texture and lend a lovely deep caramel flavour.
I don't often use dates because they do have a high natural sugar content. However, the sugar in dates is absorbed less rapidly than table sugar.
Dates have other health benefits, which you can read about in this post on my sweet potato brownies.
Since I'm using only ½ date per slice, the amount of sugar per portion is still low.
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🌟 Why You'll Love This Recipe
- Fluffy crumb - The texture is light yet moist.
- Christmas flavor - Festive spices combined with chocolate!
- Easy recipe - Suitable for baking beginner. Only 15 minutes prep.
- Low carb - One slice of this cake is 10.4g net carbs.
Ingredients
Here are the ingredients you will need:
- Ground almonds. For super-fine almond flour, reduce the amount by ¼ cup.
- Dark chocolate. I am using 90% Lindt. It is very low in sugar. You can also use a sugar-free chocolate such as Lily's. In this case, reduce the amount of sweetener accordingly.
- Butter. Melted, then cooled.
- Heavy cream. Also called double cream. Room temperature.
- Dates. I used 8 pitted dates.
- Eggs. Should be large and room temperature.
- Granulated sweetener. Any 1:1 sugar substitute works. I used a brown erythritol monk fruit sweetener blend.
- Baking powder
- Spices: Cinnamon, cardamom and cloves.
Instructions
It is just a few simple steps to make this cake. Ingredient amounts are in the recipe card at the bottom of the post.
Step 1: Melt the chocolate and butter in a non-stick pan or in the microwave.
Step 2: Line a springform with parchment paper and grease the sides. De-stone and chop the dates.
Step 3: Separate the eggs and beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Step 4: Mix the egg yolks and sweetener. Then add the rest of the wet ingredients and blend.
Step 5: Stir together the dry ingredients (almond flour, baking powder and spices). Add to the wet ingredients and mix until you have a smooth dough.
Step 6: Gently fold in the egg whites.
Step 7: Pour into your springform, decorate with cinnamon sticks and almonds and bake until the cake is cooked but still a little gooey in the centre.
Top tips
Don't over-heat the chocolate or it can curdle and seize. Melt it slowly, together with the butter. Once it is ALMOST melted, take it off the heat or stove microwaving. Stir until it is fully melted.
Add 1 tablespoon of grated orange zest and 1-2 tablespoon brandy to the cake batter to take the Christmas cake flavour to the next level.
FAQ
Replace the dates with another 4 tablespoon of erythritol and reduce the amount of almond flour by ½ cup / 50g. This changes the net carb count to 3.5g and the sugar to 0.7g per slice. Or, add the spices to my keto chocolate cake.
The recipe will still work if you don't. But you get a lighter crumb structure by beating the egg whites and folding them in last.
No, that would not work.
Of course. You will have to adjust the baking time. The cake will take longer to bake if you use a 20 cm springform pan.
Try the ganache from my sugar free birthday cake or the frosting from the chocolate avocado cake. Or enjoy with sugar free whipped cream.
Storage
Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week.
Alternatively, slice and freeze for up to 3 months.
Related recipes
Tried this recipe? Give it a star rating below!
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Recipe
Sugar Free Chocolate Christmas 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
- 2 cups ground almonds 200g. For super-fine almond flour, reduce by ¼ cup or 25 grams.
- 8.8 oz dark chocolate 250g, 90% cocoa solids
- ¾ cup butter 170g, unsalted
- â…“ cup cream 80ml
- 8 Medjool dates 150g / 5.3oz, pitted
- 5 eggs
- ½ cup granulated sweetener 100g
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
To decorate
- 6 cinnamon sticks
- 20 blanched almonds
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 160 Celsius / 320 Fahrenheit (electric).
- Melt the chocolate and butter in a non-stick pan or in the microwave.
- Line the bottom of a 25 cm diameter round springform cake tin with baking paper and grease the sides with butter
- Remove the stones from the dates and chop finely.
- Separate the eggs and beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
- Mix the egg yolks and sweetener. Then add the rest of the wet ingredients - heavy cream and the butter / chocolate mixture.
- Stir together the almond flour, baking powder and spices. Ad to the wet ingredients and mix until you have a smooth dough.
- Gently fold in the egg whites.
- Pour into your springform, decorate with cinnamon sticks and almonds and bake around 40 minutes until the cake is cooked but still a little gooey in the centre.
- Remove from the oven and let the cake cool in the tin.
Notes
Nutrition
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Gunda Krause
Hello, this looks looks amazing, and I am definitely going to try this for Christmas. I have been missing all my traditional German Christmas goodies! I manage my pre-diabetes entirely through diet, so I love your recipes. I may be mis-remembering, but did you used to have a more traditional keto-version Christmas cake recipe here as well (using orange juice as a sweetener)? I can no longer find it?
Katrin Nürnberger
Hi Gunda, I have a recipe for low carb stollen and also for a keto panettone. Both use orange peel and zest.
Clare
At his looks and sounds amazing. But in these Covid days with only small groups able to meet can you give the cake tin size for half the recipe please.
Prasad
Thank you so much Katrin sharing this article. I’ve been finding an amazing chocolate cake recipe past days. I will definitely try this.soon.
Rajni Gupta
Do you share Eggless recipes also.
Katrin
I'm working on vegan recipes right now, so keep on checking in!
Dottie LeBlanc-Overland
Hiya, I have questions. I am fairly new to LCHF baking. So the only almond flour i have seen has been the superfine type. Ground almonds, do you mean a paste?
Katrin
Hi Dottie, here in the UK supermarkets sell ground almonds which is coarser than superfine almond flour. This could be comparable to almond meal in the US. Or, indeed, some almond flour brands which do not call themselves superfine. Check out your non-branded supermarket-own almond flour, for example. It's not a paste.
Sara
I've been searching for a low carb Christmas cake and this recipe looks amazing! Francisco and I will definetly be trying it out this year. Thank you sooooo much Katrin! 🙂
Kim | Low Carb Maven
This torte sounds terribly decadent! I'm one of those people who loves spice in my desserts in the fall and around holidays and dates lend such nice warm flavor and moistness. I bet it's stellar.
Maya | Wholesome Yum
I love your use of dates in this recipe! I can already smell the spices!
Georgina
That looks so moist and delicious!!!
Katrin
Thank you Georgina, is really is super-moist... and unfortunately gone already!
STACEY
I love that this has dates but is still low carb with dense fudgy goodness.
Katrin
Thank you Stacey! This cake has gone onto my list of favourites