Low-Carb Chocolate Mayonnaise Pound Cake with Cream-Cheese Frosting

Yes! You can eat real chocolate cake on low carb!
And it's just 6-1/2 net carbs!

The first time I tried to make a chocolate cake low carb, I was terrified of messing up. Low-carb baking ingredients are not cheap, and I had visions dancing in my head of the cake coming out a doughy mess that tasted awful.

Didn't happen.

This cake came out so good, that my in-laws didn't even realize it was low carb until I told them! If you're NOT gluten free, you'll be pleasantly surprised at just how good this recipe is. And That's a promise!

If you think you can't have chocolate cake if you're low carb, I have a huge surprise for you!

As long as you don't have to avoid gluten (there's vital wheat gluten in the flour mix used in the recipe), this low-carb cake will take care of any cake cravings you might have!

You do need to make this low-carb chocolate cake at least a day ahead.

After topping the cake with a yummy low-carb cream-cheese frosting, it has to sit overnight with plastic wrap over the top of the pan. 

This step will help the moisture in the cake to redistribute itself, or it will be drier than you like. The resting time changes the texture of the cake, as well as the moisture content, so it comes out just like a real pound cake.

I'm sorry to say that I don't have a photo of the cake.

I didn't own a digital camera in 2007.

Since this low-carb chocolate cake is made with vital wheat gluten, instead of using all almond flour or some other gluten-free alternative, I can't make it again because I can't have anything with gluten in the house.

I'm very, very sensitive to gluten and have only just begun to experiment with almond flour.

What is Vital Wheat Gluten?

Vital wheat gluten is the pure protein portion of wheat flour, so there's little wheat starch left in the finished product and very few carbs.

Unlike traditional all-purpose flour, which is 23 carbs per quarter cup, gluten powder is only 4 carbs for the same amount, and 1 gram of fiber, which makes it 3 net carbs per quarter cup.

This comes to 12 net carbs for an entire cup of flour, making vital wheat gluten a useful low-carb alternative when used carefully and with discretion.

When you combine it with water, gluten goes super thick and difficult to work with, just like the old-fashioned homemade taffy my mom used to make when I was growing up. You don't want to use too much or it will turn into a mess.

Vital wheat gluten is best for giving batters a bit more volume or tightening up a meatball. Use too much and your baked goods will come out spongy and chewy.

To make vital wheat gluten:

Wheat flour is hydrated with water and kneaded into a dough ball, as if you were making bread.

Vital Wheat Gluten is the protein portion of
flour, without the starch, so it is very low in carbs.

The dough ball is then placed under running water to wash away the wheat starch.

Commercially, the water is collected and the wheat starch is separated from the liquid, but if you're doing this yourself, most cooks just let the water run down the drain.

After washing, what's left is a very tight ball of gluten, which is then dried and ground into a protein-rich, low-carb powder.

Ordinarily, recipes made with pure gluten flour only call for a tablespoon or two because its purpose is to boost the protein content of what you're making.

Honeyville Vital Wheat Gluten

(Available at Amazon)

It also adds elasticity and a firm network that helps to trap air bubbles when baking with yeast or some other form of leavening.

In general, the higher in gluten your overall flour mix is, the higher the rise, and therefore, the lighter the finished product, but this only holds true when you combine different flours together.

Low-carb breads made with all vital wheat gluten do not resemble traditional bread at all. While they are not heavy, and look like a loaf of bread when you take it out of the oven, they are incredibly spongy.

The protein can be especially helpful with gluten-free flours, which are often lower in protein, but since low carbers don't use wheat flour at all, the gluten is used in this recipe to help hold the low-carb cake ingredients together, so the cake doesn't crumble after it cools.

You'll also get a higher cake than you would if you were only using straight almond meal.

The gluten gives this cake a firmer texture, making it more like pound cake than a layer cake. Although traditional cake flours are lower in gluten than all-purpose flour, the small amount of gluten used in this recipe is very important because almond flour doesn't have any gluten at all.

For the cake to rise properly, the batter needs to have a net-like structure, which is what the gluten provides.

Almond Meal Versus Blanched Almond Flour

Another thing I haven't tried in this recipe is using blanched almond flour.

In 2007, almond flour was incredibly expensive, so most of us were using a coffee grinder to grind our own almonds into almond meal and calling that almond flour.

It's not.

Almond meal isn't flour.

It can be very confusing to know which type of ground almonds the author of a recipe used, especially today when almond flour is much more affordable than it was in 2007.

For example, some manufacturers call almond meal -- almond flour -- which can be quite confusing and might not work in your recipes if the recipe was created to use almond flour instead of meal.

To avoid buying the wrong product:

When purchasing almond flour, make sure you buy the "blanched" almond flour.

Nut meals used to always have the skins included, but today, they are also available without:

Blanched almond meal

(Available at Amazon)

So if you always buy the blanched variety, you'll be sure you're getting the right type because blanched almonds don't have skins and work for recipes that call for regular meal.

Many recipes can be exchanged back and forth between the two varieties. An almond-meal pie crust, for example, can be made with either almond meal or almond flour.

But not all recipes can be substituted like that with good results.

Almond meal is not as smooth as the flour is, so it doesn't soak up as much liquid as almond flour does. This changes the consistency of the batter, as well as the texture of the final product.

The following low-carb chocolate pound cake was made with homemade ground almonds. I ground them in a coffee grinder and continued grinding the nuts until they were as fine as store-bought almond meal. You can simply purchase blanched almond meal if you like.

However, almond flour is extremely easy to get today.

Blanched Almond Flour

(Available at Amazon)

It's available at grocery stores, Vitacost, Netrition, Amazon, and other places. Since it's finer, it would make a better crumb and texture.

Low-Carb Nutritional Information

This is an honest-to-goodness sugar-free chocolate pound cake that I used to top with a rich-and-thick low-carb cream cheese frosting before we went gluten free. The frosting tastes just like regular frosting.

If you serve this to guests, I guarantee you that they will not know it's low carb unless you tell them.

You'll absolutely LOVE the carb count:

It's only 6-1/2 net carbs per normal-sized serving, including the frosting.

If you want to skip the icing and just top it with a bit of whipped cream, the cake itself will cost you 5-1/2 net carbs. So, the frosting only adds 1 net carb.

Optionally, you could skip the frosting and top it with some low-carb vanilla ice cream.

The calorie and fat counts didn't come out too awfully bad, either. Not as bad as I would have thought. But it depends on the type of sweeteners you decide to use.

Still, this is definitely one of those recipes that is low in carbs, while high in calories like traditional cake would be.

You'll want to save it for special occasions. It's definitely not everyday food.

But then: IT'S CAKE.

How I Made this Keto-Friendly Pound Cake

The original recipe was posted at the old Low Carb Luxury forum by BettyR. That forum no longer exists.

If it was originally posted at Low-Carb Friends, it's now gone.

I cut the original recipe in half, since there is only two of us. I didn't see the point in using a huge bundt pan. If you want to use the bundt pan, you can just double the recipe, pour the batter into a well-greased (or sprayed) large bundt pan, and bake at 325 degrees for 45 to 50 minutes.

The original recipe wasn't frosted, since it was a bundt cake, but many people were glazing it by melting sugar-free chocolate bars and then adding a little heavy cream. The cream needs to be warm or at least room temperature, or it will cause the chocolate to seize up.

I've never been into bundt cakes much, due to the lack of frosting, except when making a low-carb strawberry shortcake, so after cutting the recipe in half, I baked it in a 9-inch square baking pan instead.

If you don't have a 9-inch square pan and can't find one in your area, the more popular 8-inch size will be fine.

Since I've never baked a double recipe in a 9 x 13 cake pan, I have no idea if it will cook all the way through in the center. Gluten-free cakes are problematic baked in large pans, but this cake does have gluten, so maybe it would work that way, too.

I made only a couple of tweaks to the original recipe.

I like my chocolate cakes to be good and rich, so I used Hershey's dark cocoa, instead of regular cocoa, and added a tablespoon of creme de cacoa liquor to deepen the chocolate flavor. You can use normal cocoa if that's what you have.

I didn't use liquid Splenda, as it was very expensive and difficult to come by in 2007, so I used a Splenda quick pack instead. Today, the Splenda quick pack is no longer available, but liquid Splenda is easy to get and reasonably priced.

But you can use liquid Stevia or any other sugar alternative, including additional sugar alcohol, if they are not problematic for you.

Erythritol would add bulk, as well as stickiness to the cake, so if you replace it with a non sugar alcohol, your cake won't be as thick, but you can use any type of sugar alternatives you like.

The cake rises quite high, due to the gluten, so it might be fine with other types of sweeteners.

To serve, I took a miniature sugar-free Hershey's candy bar, grated it up, then sprinkled it over the top of the creamy white frosting.

After doing that, however, I realized I could have also sprinkled it with a handful of chopped almonds or pecans, as well, for a prettier presentation, but it would have added more carbs.

Low-Carb Chocolate Mayonnaise Pound Cake

Makes 9 servings or 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups almond flour
1/2 cup vital wheat gluten
1/3 cup unsweetened dark cocoa
1/2 teaspoon + 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs
1/4 cup erythritol
second sweetener equal to 1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup vanilla sugar-free syrup
1/3 cup heavy cream cream
1 tablespoon creme de cacao (optional)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Combine all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir well. Add the wet ingredients in the exact order listed and beat with an electric mixer on high for 5 minutes. The extra mixing time will help the gluten to develop.

The original recipe said to put everything into a food processor and blend for 15 minutes, but I don't have one and 15 minutes sounded quite excessive to me, even now that I'm an expert at gluten-free cooking and baking.

I also didn't want to whip too much air into the batter back then, due to the altitude. We were at 5,800 feet, and cakes were always a hit-and-miss affair.

Pour the batter into a 9-inch Pam-sprayed square baking pan and bake for 35 minutes. (If I were making this again today, I would bake it for only 30 minutes. Over-baked cakes come out dry.)

Cool in the pan and frost, if desired.

Alternatively, to cut down on the fat and calories, you could serve it with a scoop of freshly whipped heavy cream or even a chocolate whipped cream.

Carb wise, this cake is a good buy. Only 5.5 net carbs per serving.

*If you baked the batter as 12 cupcakes, instead of a layer cake, your net carb count drops to 4.1 net carbs. Bake at 325 for about 20 minutes. Make sure you use paper liners in your muffin pan. Frosting will add 0.75 net carbs, coming to just under 5 net carbs per cupcake.

Low-Carb Cream Cheese Frosting (Sugar Free)

Ingredients:

8 ounces softened cream cheese
1/2 cup soft butter
sweetener equal to 1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat the cream cheese with an electric mixer until it is nice and smooth. Add the butter, and beat again. You'll want to keep mixing this for a couple of minutes to beat in some extra air. The frosting will be fluffier, if you do.

Add your sweetener and vanilla.

Beat together for a third time until the whole thing is nice and smooth. Additional liquid sweetener won't add to the carb count if you like your frosting extra sweet.

This sugar-free low-carb frosting will only add 1 carb per layer-cake serving, as it's just 9 carbs for the whole batch.