The Best Gluten-Free Keto Chocolate Cake

Do you need a recipe for the best gluten-free & keto chocolate decadence cake? Do you want to get raves, oohs and aahs, and have people think you are incredibly talented genius in the kitchen? Do you want to eat something delicious (and GF safe)? Then this recipe is for you…make this!

Gluten-Free Keto Chocolate Cake Safe for the people in your life!

I’ve got celiac so this recipe is one of my favorites and has been even before I had to stop eating gluten because it is flourless and it’s naturally GF! In the 1980s my mom would make it for my birthday with melted Hershey bars….so good! Well now I avoid the gluten – AND the carbs – so I’ve updated it and now make it with sugar-free chocolate and it’s still just as delicious as I remember. (But hey if you can eat the sugar just use your favorite chocolate in this recipe instead!)

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Flourless and Sugar-Free? Why Yes!

There are countless variations of flourless chocolate cakes so I can’t give credit to anyone – except that I know this recipe came to our family in the 1980s from a small paperback chocolate cookbook with a sketch of a decadent lady on the front (wish I had that book!), the recipe called “Chocolate Decadence”. Google it and you’ll find a ton of recipes. I wanted one that was easy and fool-proof (mostly!).

I’d like to emphasize that you can make this any number of ways and it is still delicious. Whip the eggs over the heat or don’t whip them, use a double boiler or use a microwave, use Lily’s chocolate or Simply Lite – ultimately it won’t affect how delicious melted chocolate and butter is going to taste! It will, however, affect the way the cake looks and feels in your mouth. Some types of alternative sugars leave cakes harder (erythritol), some leave a cooling taste in your mouth (xylitol). The cake may be denser if the eggs aren’t whipped up, but it will still be delicious. There’s a mess of food science behind it and because I’m a food science nerd I did the research (nerd info is in the Tip boxes).

Make this Gluten-Free Keto Chocolate Cake with only 5 ingredients.

1. Sugar-free chocolate (like Lily’s, Simple Lite)
2. Butter
3. Eggs
4. Vanilla
5. Sugar-free sweetener (like Swerve, Allulose, Monkfruit)

Make this Gluten-Free Keto Chocolate Cake in 5 easy steps.

1. Melt the chocolate and butter
2. Whip the eggs, sugar and vanilla
3. Fold them together
4. Line a pan, pour the batter in
5. Bake 15 min

See how easy? Jump ahead if you want, or read on…

Melt that Chocolate

I tested two types of sugar-free chocolate for this (but honestly I usually throw whatever I have on hand in there). First up is Lily’s which is sweetened with erythritol, inulin, and stevia and it’s good (and GF) – it is loaded with dark cocoa so has a deep (not very sweet) dark chocolate flavor. I’d sweeten the raspberry sauce and whipped cream for this cake. The other one I tested is the sugar-free chocolate from Trader Joe’s, it is from Simply Lite and is made with Maltitol, tasty but I don’t love maltitol’s side effects (see TIP below). The taste reminds me of the cheap kind of chocolate from Easter Bunnies! But, whatever- I love it – I am a milk chocolate fan!

TIP: Sugar free chocolates are sweetened with all kinds of different things from synthetic to natural.

Synthetic sweeteners: saccharin, aspartame, sucralose
Natural sweeteners: Stevia, Allulose, Monkfruit
Sugar alcohols: Xylitol, Maltitol, Erythritol — all the “ols”!

Beware they can wreak havoc on your gut. Start slow until you know how you react, or get used to it. Maltitol is sweet and tasty with little aftertaste but is one of the culprits that can cause, um, serious distress, and it can raise blood sugar more than others! So I limit the use of those. Go slowly with the alternatives until you know how they affect you.

They also all have slightly different chemical reactions in baking. Erythritol will cause your baked goods to feel “harder” than usual and are best eaten the same day. Allulose, a new one on the market, is one of the only alternatives that behaves like real sugar in that it browns and carmalizes and the others do not.

Here are some of my favorite keto/low carb websites with more information about alternative sugars:

Ruled.Me
Mark’s Daily Apple
Gnom Gnom

If you don’t use chocolate chips, coarsely chop your chocolate so it melts evenly. Add the chocolate and butter to a bowl and melt on low over a double boiler (it’s just a pot of simmering water with a bowl on it, nothing fancy). Or use the microwave on 50% power stirring after 1 min, add 30 seconds until melted. Be careful not to get any moisture in the melting chocolate or it will seize up.

Whip the eggs!

Whip warm eggs. There are a few ways to do this, you can do it the quick and less voluminous way and warm the eggs before you crack them in a bowl of hot water, or you can warm them over a double boiler (see tip). Once warmed, beat the eggs for a few minutes then add the sugar and vanilla. Then beat the heck out of the eggs until they are triple in volume and become a pale yellow color – about 10 minutes on medium to medium-high.

TIP: It is the beating of the eggs over a warm water bath that creates an egg foam like fluff, and provides the structure and leavening for this flourless cake. Warming the ingredients helps them to combine and reach maximum volume. If you overbeat them you’ll have egg fluff, if you under beat you’ll have foam – you are looking for a ribbony texture falling off your beater. Check this out for the technique.

Get your hands on some fresh eggs if you can, they will be more voluminous and create more stability. All that said, it will taste fine if you don’t do whip them perfectly!

Fold it together: chocolate meets eggs

Now you need to put these two beauties together – chocolate meets eggs! The eggs and chocolate should both be about the same temperature, slightly warm (if either cooled put it over the double boiler for a quicky to rewarm). Start by taking 1/3 of the whipped eggs and folding it into the chocolate. Folding isn’t stirring – you are taking your spatula and cutting through the middle of -and under -the batter and folding it up and gently turning it over on to the other half.

This lightens the chocolate up a bit so it doesn’t deflate the eggs. Continue this process and fold until JUST blended – don’t go crazy. (But if you do it will still taste delicious, it will just be flat!)

Prepare the Pan and Pour the Batter

Prepare an 8″ baking pan by greasing it up (use the butter wrapper) and lining it with parchment paper. If you have a springform pan use it, they are easy to pop the cake out of, but regular pans are A-OK! I lay the pan on the paper, trace, and cut a piece out to line the bottom for a perfect fit.

Gently pour the batter in and….

Bake that baby!

Pop that bad boy in the oven (preheated to 400^o).

Bake the cake in the center of the oven for 15 minutes. It won’t look done, it may wiggle and jiggle a bit. It is done. Don’t overbake this, please! If you are worried pop a thermometer in there and eggs are safe at 140^o – I promise.

Cool it on a rack, loosen the edges with a knife and invert a plate over the top to free it. It can be made ahead it holds up very well in the freezer or refrigerator… until you are ready to … present it!

Gluten-Free Keto Chocolate Cake Presentation

Garnishes and Sauces!

Prepare yourself – if you want a big old fluffy mile-high cake this is not for you, – this little baby is a “short” cake, sunken and flat and dense. So the presentation is really key if you are showing off or sharing at a party!

I present mine in various ways including sprinkling with sugar-free powdered Swerve or cocoa powder, raspberry sauce, whipped cream, fresh raspberries, and chocolate shavings. All gluten-free and low carb. Nice.

Raspberry Coulis – it’s just raspberry sauce

This is the easiest thing in the world to make, seriously, and it will seem like you are a gourmet chef!

I use a 12-ounce bag of frozen raspberries, put them in a pan with 2 Tbs of water and cook them over medium-low heat until soft. If you want to sweeten it you can add a little Swerve or use SF Vanilla Syrup. But I like mine tart.

Use an immersion blender to puree it all up. Strain it through a sieve (fine mesh strainer) into a jar (removes the seeds) and cool. That’s it!

That’s it! So Easy and Delicious. Gluten-Free Keto Chocolate Cake. Leave your questions in the comments, I promise to answer!