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Keto Lemon Pound Cake with a delicious lemon glaze is a thick slice of soft, moist heaven. This low-carb pound cake recipe has the absolute perfect texture and makes for an amazing sugar-free breakfast, snack or dessert. This recipe includes a dairy-free option as well as a paleo option.
It wasn’t until making this recipe that I learned why pound cake is called pound cake.
Am I the last person on earth to have learned this?
Pound cake is a thick, dense, moist cake typically made in a Bundt cake pan or a bread loaf pan. It is called “pound cake” because it contains a pound of butter, flour, eggs, and sugar respectively.
That’s how you know it’s good 😉
While pound cake does check all the boxes of a typical cake, it has a unique texture that gives it a denser structure and an explosion of buttery flavor.
Pound cake is amazing enough on its own, but when you do something wild like serve it with fresh berries, whipped cream, or ice cream, the experience turns from great to otherworldly lickety split.
Because I’m a long-time fanatic of classic pound cake, I figured I would make a grain-free version that is also sugar-free and keto-friendly.
Plus, adding lemon zest just makes the experience incredibly refreshing, and so this keto lemon pound cake was born.
The overall concept is very similar to my Keto Lemon Poppy Seed Bread, but with that iconic pound cake texture.
Let’s dive right into the details!
Low-Carb Lemon Pound Cake Ingredients:
Almond Flour and Coconut Flour: The combination of almond flour and coconut flour results in tender, fluffy, yet dense and moist texture for this beautiful keto pound cake recipe. Be cautious to use the exact amounts listed, as neither one are interchangeable for the other at a 1:1 replacement.
Sugar-Free Granulated Sweetener: In order to make this pound cake sugar-free, we use a sugar-free granulated sweetener. My top three favorite brands of sugar-free sweeteners to use in baking are Lakanto (monk fruit sweetener), Swerve (erythritol), or Truvia (Stevia leaf extract).
Eggs: Because coconut flour is very dense and we’re working with grain-free flours, we need more eggs in this grain-free pound cake recipe than we would in an otherwise regular flour recipe. The eggs ensure the cake becomes incredibly fluffy and holds together nicely.
Butter or Coconut Oil: The fat portion of the pound cake! Melted butter or coconut oil bring incredible rich flavor to the pound cake. Use coconut oil if you eat a dairy-free diet, or replace the butter with ghee to keep it tasting buttery but make it lactose-free.
Lemon Zest and Lemon Juice: The stars of the show! Lemon pound cake is irresistible due to its zesty, tangy, amazingly sweet flavors. Lemon zest is what provides the majority of the lemon flavor, so be sure you don’t skimp on it! You need the zest of two large lemons, which equates to about 1 tablespoon of zest, plus a few tablespoons of fresh lemon juice.
Baking Powder and Baking Soda: Both baking powder and baking soda are used as leavening agents in this recipe. Be sure you use unexpired baking powder and baking soda and that you follow the amounts in the recipe in order to get the right texture.
Sea Salt: Sea salt levels up that delicious lemon flavor, brings out the richness of the pound cake, and ensures everything tastes nice and sweet! Don’t skip it!
Optional Glaze:
For the Glaze: Sugar-free powdered sugar (also known as confectioner’s sweetener) and lemon juice. This simple combination makes for a deliciously sweet yet zesty glaze, making the pound cake taste extra refreshing.
While the glaze is optional, I do recommend it because it makes that amazing crinkly topping similar to a glazed donut that just puts the icing on the cake 😉
How to Make Low-Carb Lemon Pound Cake:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line a bread loaf pan with parchment paper.
Whisk the melted butter, eggs, and lemon juice together in a mixing bowl until well-combined and creamy (wet ingredients).
In a separate mixing bowl, stir together the almond flour, coconut flour, sugar-free granulated sweetener, baking powder, baking soda, and sea salt (the dry ingredients) until well-combined.
Pour the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl with the wet ingredients and stir until a thick batter forms. Stir in the lemon zest until combined.
Transfer the pound cake batter to the prepared loaf pan and smooth it into an even layer. Bake on the center rack of the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Remove the pound cake from the oven, turn the oven temperature down to 330 degrees F, and cover the pound cake with foil.
Bake for another 50 to 65 minutes at 330 degrees, or until the cake tests clean.
Allow the pound cake to cool completely (at the very least, allow it to cool for 30 minutes) before covering it with glaze and slicing.
To make the glaze, simply stir together the sugar-free confectioners sweetener and the lemon juice together in a small bowl until thick and creamy. Spread all of this mixture on top of the bread. Allow the glaze to set up before slicing into the cake and serving.
As you can see, pound cake requires more time in the oven than a standard quick bread. Here’s why!
Why Does Pound Cake Take So Long to Bake?:
In order to get the texture of this low-carb pound cake to come out identical to regular pound cake, we must bake it at a lower temperature than normal for a longer period of time.
This allows the bread to rise and cook slowly, allowing the center to become completely cooked through and at the same time achieve that lusciously soft and dense texture. If the oven temperature is too high, the top cooks faster than the middle, which is fine for some types of breads or cakes, but in this cake, we want the top of the pound cake to remain very soft.
Can I Make Paleo Pound Cake?:
If you aren’t following a sugar-free, low-carb or ketogenic diet, you can easily make this pound cake recipe with other granulated sweeteners in a 1:1 replacement. To make Paleo Pound Cake, replace the sugar-free sweetener with maple sugar.
If you use can sugar in your baking, swap out the sugar-free sweetener with cane sugar.
You may also use coconut sugar although the color of the pound cake will be much darker and slightly brown.
Can I Substitute the Almond Flour or Coconut Flour?:
While I normally encourage freedom of expression with recipes, this is one of those situations where you definitely want to leave the measurements of the almond flour and coconut flour exactly as written.
Coconut flour absorbs four times the amount of liquid as almond flour, so if you take some of it away, the cake will contain too much liquid, may not cook through, and won’t have the right structure.
Add too much coconut flour and your cake will turn out incredibly dry and suck all the moisture out of your mouth while eating it.
For the best results, stick with the recipe as is, and if you need a different version, consult a different recipe rather than trying to change this one.
Nutrition Facts:
When slicing the pound cake into 8 thick slices, each slice of keto lemon pound cake contains 4 grams of carbohydrate and 2 grams of fiber, equaling 2 net carbs per slice. Each slice is just under 200 calories. Not too shabby for a grain-free sugar-free treat!
More Keto Dessert Recipes:
Keto Cinnamon Swirl BreadDairy-Free Keto Coffee Cake Low-Carb Carrot Cake Bread Keto Brownie Cake Flourless Keto Peanut Butter Cookies Keto Blueberry Crumble
Enjoy this slice of zesty, moist, soft keto pound cake!
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Keto Lemon Pound Cake
Yield: 8 ServingsPrep Time: 10 minutes Cook Time: 1 hour 15 minutes Total Time: 1 hour 25 minutes
Zesty, moist, dense Keto Lemon Pound Cake made grain-free and sugar-free is a vibrant, guilt-free treat!
Ingredients
½ cup melted coconut oil or 1 stick of butter, melted5 eggs3 Tbsp lemon juice2 cups almond flour, packed and leveled¼ cup coconut flour, packed and leveled ⅔ cup sugar-free granulated sweetener*2 tsp baking powder¼ tsp baking soda½ tsp sea salt1 Tbsp lemon zest
Optional Glaze:
1 cup sugar-free powdered sugar2 Tbsp lemon juice or water
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line a bread loaf pan with parchment paper.
2. Whisk the melted butter, eggs, and lemon juice together in a mixing bowl until well-combined and creamy (wet ingredients).
3. In a separate mixing bowl, stir together the almond flour, coconut flour, sugar-free granulated sweetener, baking powder, baking soda, and sea salt (the dry ingredients) until well-combined.
4. Pour the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl with the wet ingredients and stir until a thick batter forms. Stir in the lemon zest until combined.
5. Transfer the pound cake batter to the prepared loaf pan and smooth it into an even layer.
6. Bake on the center rack of the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Remove the pound cake from the oven, turn the oven temperature down to 330 degrees F, and cover the pound cake with foil. Bake for another 50 to 65 minutes at 330 degrees, or until the cake tests clean.
7. Allow the pound cake to cool completely (at the very least, allow it to cool for 30 minutes) before covering it with glaze and slicing.
8. To make the glaze, simply stir together the sugar-free confectioners sweetener and the lemon juice together in a small bowl until thick and creamy. Spread all of this mixture on top of the bread. Allow the glaze to set up before slicing into the cake and serving.
Notes
*You can replace the sugar-free sweetener with cane sugar or maple sugar if you don’t need the pound cake to be sugar-free.
Similarly, you can replace the sugar-free powdered sugar with regular powdered sugar or with powdered maple sugar.
Nutrition Information
Yield 8Serving Size 1 Slice (of 8)
Amount Per ServingCalories 199Total Fat 18gCarbohydrates 4gFiber 2gSugar 1gProtein 6g
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