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| How to make Low-Carb Strawberry Shortcake |
Why not take advantage of summer's berry bounty with this low-carb Strawberry Shortcake recipe that uses Dr. Atkins original Revolution Rolls.
Sponge cake never tasted so good!
The eye-catching angel-food masterpiece can also be turned into snack-sized cupcakes and frosted with a tasty low-carb cream-cheese frosting for easy portion control!
The Low-Carb Strawberry Shortcake recipe I have for you is guaranteed not to let you down! I wish I would have experimented with the recipe much earlier than I did.
I was quite surprised by just how versatile it is.
The original recipe for the rolls was published in 1972 in Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution book, but over the years, many creative low-carb cooks have tweaked the recipe and come up with all sorts of things you can do with them.
From hot dog buns to pizza to waffles to snack-sized cupcakes, these rolls can be used anytime you need a soft, spongy dough.
These low-carb rolls are extremely popular on low-carb forums because they make great burger and sandwich buns, as well. However, I could never figure out why folks were so crazy about them.
Well . . . Now, I know.
Revolution Rolls are Actually Angel Food Cake
The batter for this low-carb cake is basically whipped egg whites, so it never dawned on me what that meant. For years, I couldn't wrap my head around how meringue -- even with a bit of cottage cheese added -- was going to taste anything close to bread.
The light bulb didn't go off in my head until someone in the Atkins 72 section of the Low Carb Friends forum mentioned that the rolls tasted similar to angel food cake.
I LOVE angel food cake!
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| If you like angel food cake, you'll love this low-carb strawberry shortcake recipe. |
Utah has a very short growing season.
Most of the fruit we were able to get when we lived there was imported from either California or Mexico. However, the short season did make it easy to grow several varieties of berries:
- strawberries
- blueberries
- black raspberries
- red raspberries
But don't limit yourself to just strawberries. Shortcake can be made with any berry you like, or even a mixture of several.
It was too enticing a thought to not give it a try.
To make the low-carb cake work, I had to come up with a few adaptions to Dr. Atkins' original Revolution Rolls, since the rolls aren't sweet and needed a bit more structure to hold up beneath all of those berries, but the shortcake turned out perfect.
And yes, the cake really does look like, and taste like, a real honest-to-goodness angel food cake.
That's because an angel food cake is ordinarily made with very little wheat flour. I'm willing to bet that your family and guests won't know the difference unless you tell them this Strawberry Shortcake is low carb.
Mine sure didn't.
Low-Carb Strawberry Shortcake Recipe
Ingredients:- 2 eggs, separated
- 2 oz cream cheese, heated in the microwave until soft
- sugar substitute equal to 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 tbsp whey protein powder
- 1/8 tsp Xanthan gum
- 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
- 1 pint strawberries, sliced and sweetened to taste if necessary
- 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream, whipped
Into the yolks, with a wire whisk, blend the cream cheese, sugar substitute, cinnamon, protein powder, and xanthan gum. It will still be a bit lumpy, no matter how long you beat this, so just get it as smooth as you can.
Sprinkle the cream of tartar over the egg whites and with an electric mixer or a stand mixer, beat the whites until stiff. You want the whites to get as stiff as you can get them.
To check the stiffness, turn the bowl over. The egg-white foam should stay firmly in place without sliding out of the bowl if they are stiff enough.
Now, take a spoonful of the whites and carefully mix it into the yolks to lighten the yolk mixture a bit. Then carefully pour or spoon the yolk mixture over the top of the whites. Gently fold together 10 to 12 times with a rubber spatula. There will still be streaks of white in the mixture, but that's okay. You don't want to break down the egg whites.
Line a cookie sheet with either parchment paper, a silpat mat, or non-stick foil. Using a tablespoon, carefully pile one spoonful of the batter into four piles. Then pile another spoonful of batter on top of each pile. Continue doing this for as many rounds as necessary, until all the batter is used up.
They should look like small cream puffs.
Bake the puffs for about 40 to 45 minutes. They should pop right off the pan and be stiff to the touch. Cool the puffs for a bit, and then place them in quart-sized zipper-type baggies, 2 per baggie, and chill them in the refrigerator overnight.
Letting them sit in the refrigerator is what changes their hard, crumbly texture into a soft angel food puff that doesn't taste eggy.
To Serve:
Carefully cut each low-carb shortcake in half, horizontally, with a serrated knife. Divide the whipped cream among the 4 puffs, and top each shortcake with an equal portion of sliced strawberries. Replace the top back onto the puffs.This makes 4 servings, about 6 net-carbs each, plus whatever sweetener you might want to add to the strawberries. If you use a liquid sweetener, without any maltodextrin fillers, it won't add anything to the carb count.
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Want additional ideas on how to serve this terrific cake? I'll share a few of those next:
Additional Strawberry Shortcake Ideas
Want to make the real thing? You can double the recipe above and bake the batter in a Pam-sprayed tube pan, like the one in the photo below for about an hour. These full-sized angel-cake pans are available at specialty shops or online at Amazon.
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| A mini angel food cake pan makes cute individual low-carb strawberry cakes |
These mini pans make cute single-serving angel food cakes that would be perfect for a birthday party or as a treat you could take with you to a special event. They come in a two-pack, so there would be plenty to share.
For a sit-down dinner, it would make a very pretty low-carb shortcake that you could treat exactly like an Angel Food Cake. Slice it in half horizontally and fill it with whipped cream and berries.
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| You can also bake Atkins Revolution Rolls as cupcakes and frost them |
I have also made this recipe into delicious cupcakes. I used paper-lined muffin cups, lightly sprayed with Pam, and then I baked them at 350 degrees for about about 20 minutes, or so.
They came out like little Angel Food Cupcakes.
Thanks to the miracle that happens when you combine cream cheese with butter, you can frost these little gems with a tasty low-carb frosting that's so good no one will know that the frosting is made without powdered sugar.
In fact, my in-laws kept going back for more and more because you can't tell the difference between these sugar-free cupcakes and the real thing.
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