The New Year’s coming around and I always love making spice cakes at this time a year. Winter is here and there’s nothing better than a nice warm spice cake after a great meal.
These light, fluffy, and moist cakes will bring a delightful warmth to your taste buds only to be cooled off by a zest and quick pinch of lemon with the cream cheese. A decadent treat for any occasion!
Optional: Add 1 Tbsp. rum to each cupcake after the come out of the oven. Drizzle it over the cakes and let it soak through. Let it seep into all the nooks and crannies of the cupcakes. This makes for a delicious dessert for a party!
Yields 12 cupcake spice cakes
The Preparation
Spice Cakes:
- 3/4 cup erythritol
- 1/2 cup butter, salted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 large egg
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 cups almond flour
- 5 tablespoons water
Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 8 ounces cream cheese
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 3 tablespoons erythritol
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 tablespoon lemon zest
The Execution
1. Preheat your oven to 350°F.
2. In a mixing bowl, add your ¾ Cup of Erythritol and ½ Cup Salted butter. Use salted butter because it gives a nicer flavor in the end.
3. Cream them together with a hand mixer until the mixture is smooth.
4. Add 2 eggs and vanilla to the mixture and continue to mix.
5. Once the mixture is smooth, add your additional 2 eggs and mix well.
6. Grind your clove in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder.
7. Add all your spices and baking powder to the mixture and mix well.
8. Add your almond flour to the batter and use a hand mixer to ensure a creamy consistency.
9. Add the water to the batter and mix it well again, you should end up with a light and creamy texture.
10. Spray a cupcake tray with oil or coat them with butter. Fill them about 2/3 the way full with the batter.
11. Put the cupcakes into the oven for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
12. While the cupcakes are cooking, we need to make the frosting.
13. In a mixing bowl, add your cream cheese, butter, erythritol, vanilla extract, and lemon zest.
14. Mix it together well with a fork and then let it sit for 10 minutes to come to room temperature.
15. Once the cupcakes are ready, take them out of the oven and let them cool for 15 minutes.
16. The icing should be at room temperature now. Cream it together with a hand mixer and put it into a Ziploc bag to pipe onto the cupcakes.
17. Remove your cupcakes from the tray and ice them well. About 1 Tbsp. icing per cupcake.
18. Serve and enjoy!
This makes a total of 12 servings of Low-Carb Spice Cakes. Each serving comes out to be 288 calories, 27g fats, 3.1g net carbs, and 7.3g protein.
| NUTRITION | CALORIES | FAT | CARBS | FIBER | NET CARBS | PROTEIN |
| 3/4 cup erythritol | 29 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1/2 cup butter | 814 | 92.1 | 0.1 | 0 | 0.1 | 1 |
| 1 teaspoon vanilla extract | 12 | 0 | 0.6 | 0 | 0.6 | 0 |
| 4 large egg | 315 | 20.9 | 1.6 | 0 | 1.6 | 27.6 |
| 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves | 1 | 0.1 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0 |
| 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon | 3 | 0 | 1.1 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 0.1 |
| 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg | 6 | 0.4 | 0.6 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.1 |
| 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice | 3 | 0.1 | 0.7 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 0.1 |
| 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger | 3 | 0 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 0.1 |
| 2 teaspoon baking powder | 5 | 0 | 2.6 | 0 | 2.5 | 0 |
| 2 cup almond flour | 1297 | 112 | 49.3 | 29.1 | 20.2 | 47 |
| 5 tablespoon water | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 8 ounce cream cheese | 776 | 77.1 | 9.3 | 0 | 9.3 | 14 |
| 2 tablespoon butter | 203 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.2 |
| 3 tablespoon erythritol | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 teaspoon vanilla extract | 12 | 0 | 0.6 | 0 | 0.6 | 0 |
| 1/2 tablespoon lemon zest | 1 | 0 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.1 |
| Totals | 3488 | 325.7 | 67.7 | 30.9 | 36.8 | 90.2 |
| Per Serving (/12) | 291 | 27.1 | 5.6 | 2.6 | 3.1 | 7.5 |
Low-Carb Spice Cakes
Ingredients
Spice Cakes:
- ¾ cup erythritol
- ½ cup butter salted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 large egg
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground allspice
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 cup almond flour
- 5 tablespoon water
Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 8 ounce cream cheese
- 2 tablespoon butter
- 3 tablespoon erythritol
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ tablespoon lemon zest
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. In a mixing bowl, add the erythritol and salted butter. (Salted butter gives a better end flavor.)
- Cream together with a hand mixer until smooth.
- Add the vanilla and half of the eggs to the mixture and continue to mix.
- Once smooth, add the remaining eggs and mix well.
- Grind the cloves using a mortar and pestle or spice grinder.
- Add all of the spices and baking powder to the mixture and combine well.
- Add the almond flour to the batter and use a hand mixer to ensure a creamy consistency. Add the water and mix until light and creamy.
- Lightly grease a cupcake tray. Pour in the batter, filling them about two-thirds of the way full. Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Meanwhile, make the frosting. In a large mixing bowl, combine the cream cheese, butter, erythritol, vanilla extract, and lemon zest.
- Mix together well with a fork and let sit for 10 minutes to come to room temperature.
- Once the cupcakes are ready, remove from the oven and let cool for 15 minutes. The icing should be at room temperature now. Use the hand mixer to cream it together. Transfer the frosting to a Ziploc bag to pipe onto the cupcakes.
- Remove the cupcakes from the tray and frost generously. Serve and enjoy!
Small typo, you forgot to mention the addition of baking powder and vanilla! It could be easily forgotten while reading your instructions 🙂
Woops 🙂 I edited the post and added that in there – thanks for pointing it out! Sometimes I forget small details when I write the recipes out because I just go off what my pictures look like.
This looks so very good!.
They were fantastic! I put 1 whole lemons zest in the frosting but they came out a bit lemon-y (probably too much for most people), so I reduced it to 1/2 lemon zest. Let me know how you like them if you try them!
Some insight please?
What brand of erythritol do you use? I noticed the endothermic effect of the kind I use when making this recipe ONLY when the cakes cooled (and I’m assuming the erythritol re-crystallized)
I see that you use SWERVE and NOW. Which one is better?
Gina,
I mainly use NOW Erythritol because it’s cheaper and I find it does about the same in baking. It also uses a non-GMO source of corn to make it, which most don’t do. I link to it in the recipe (just click the link and you’ll see) – hope that helps!
Did you do anything special to get the cupcakes OUT of the pan?? I know you greased them but how did you grease them? I sprayed olive oil spray into each tin and out of 12 cupcakes I got 4 semi normal ones…the rest wouldnt come out 🙁 They taste good though LOL
Brianna,
I had to run a knife along the sides of them for them to come out properly. But I had also am using a pretty new bakeware set that’s non-stick. So that might be it. Replacing your bakeware once a year is pretty nice as they can really get gunked up and scratched up to where they aren’t really nonstick anymore. You can grab a cheap set here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004XAU0PS/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B004XAU0PS&linkCode=as2&tag=rume00-20
I just started keto and bhave been dreading the lack of baked goods in my life. This has given me hope. Might make it into a cake! Sounds delicious.
Raven, there’s tons of awesome stuff for keto 🙂 Check out the other recipes too!
P.S. I suggest staying strict (no “treats”) for the first 2-4 weeks of keto. Just so it cuts your sugar cravings – good luck!
I made this today, but used a 13×9 glass baking dish (all my muffin pans in the dishwasher) and cooked 25″. Cut into 24 squares. Came out perfect, just like the first time I made these into cupcakes last week. We love these!!
They make great snacks or for dessert. Thanks Craig!
Tamra, sounds awesome! I rarely make full cakes, but I need to start doing that 😛
Oh dear … they don’t seem to want to ‘set’ 🙁 I used Xylotol …
Apologies! My cupcakes did ‘set’ – Delicious! Thank you for sharing this yummy recipe with us!!
Hehe, glad they turned out good then! Strange they didn’t set, it might have been the Xylitol (I don’t use it often). Happy to hear you guys enjoyed it, though 🙂
Hi Craig
Thanks for the fantastic recipe! I made a half batch of these on the weekend, minus the icing, they tasted delicious. A question though, is there a reason why you didn’t include the erythritol into the ingredient nutrient breakdown? Do the carbs from the erythritol not count?
Thanks
Thanks Rob – glad you enjoyed! That’s correct, though. As humans, we don’t have the enzymes needed to break erythritol down. So even though it has quite a lot of carbs in, we don’t process them – and it seemed to scare people away before, so I just leave it out now.
That’s interesting to know and a weight of my mind! I had one too many cakes the day I baked them and felt a bit guilty, but I feel much better to know the carbs don’t count.
Thanks again 😀
The smell was sooo good while baking that I couldn’t wait for one to cool off – I ate it out of the pan with a fork ! Don’t even think I will bother frosting these. I am going to freeze some for breakfast muffins, take a couple to work for a diabetic co-worker and I *MIGHT* let my husband have one……
YES! Another winner. I need to hire you as my taste tester, you would probably give a thumbs up to everything 😛 If you could share the site with your diabetic co-worker I’d really appreciate it!
^^HAHA^^ I’ll be a taste tester anytime ! I did have a bit of a problem getting them out as another commenter posted. Ate them anyway! I did note that the picture with the pan shows that it is a newer nonstick looking one and that you mentioned you had a newer set of bakeware….just an excuse for me to go to the cookware store…. 🙂 I have some coffee flavored extract that I want to try for the frosting next time…..
I definitely get that. I’ve actually been transitioning over to silicone. Even my “new” nonstick bakeware (it’s a few months old now) is starting to stick a bit and silicone is really just way better at doing that. Maybe if you wanted to, you could try these silicon liners. I bought them but I haven’t tried them out just yet.
Craig – The new non-stick pan was just the ticket ! They came out perfectly yummy. My brother is here for the weekend and some are going back with him and his girlfriend.
Awesome Barbara, glad to hear! I just got some silicon cupcake liners so I’ll be posting how they are sometime when I use them 🙂
I just use cupcake liners when making these. Had to make another batch last night because someone in the office was saying how they will bring in cinnamon crossiants for Friday. NOPE! Ain’t gonna get me with those crossiants! I told my co-workers that I’ll make something instead and told them how yummy they were and that they taste like carrott cake! They were a hit!
Kimberly, cupcake liners sound like a good plan of action – I am going to test out the silicone ones and see how they work out. I like that they are textured also so it will -hopefully- look pretty professional. Glad that your coworkers liked them!
These are the best! I use the silicone muffin pans and the come out perfect. I also made it in a loaf form.
I still need to make a cake out of these – I haven’t had them in forever 🙂
Made these yesterday, sooo good. The cakes taste a lot like the cinnamon doughnut cakes, but the frosting on them! i used a whole lemon zest, probably should have added 1 tbs more sweetener (i used splenda, erythiol on the way lol) frosting is sooo good, have a mate staying with me whos not on keto/low carb and he loved them lol.
Glad you and your mate liked them!
I didn’t love the frosting as much as I wanted to, even added a dash of marjoram after I first tried it. More often than not I warm them in the microwave and just melt a pat of butter on top. Fabulous and easy dessert.
That’s a shame Rose – glad you like the cupcakes though, the butter sounds like an awesome idea!
Another great dessert. The frosting was perfect! The lemon is crucial. I didn’t get a lot from my rind so I added a squirt of lemon juice. They do need to set though. I was worried because they came out gooey in the middle. But I let them sit for 15 minutes and perfect. I just sprayed a metal pan with coconut oil and they came out easily with the help of a knife around the edges. I kept mine in the fridge and popped them in the microwave for 30 seconds. Came out warm and soft and perfect every time.
Glad to hear Mindy! The lemon definitely makes it and I’m glad you gave me some trust and waited for them to cool 🙂
Looooove this recipe! I’ve made it several times and it’s always a hit, even with non-low-carbers. My only changes are I double the sweetener in the frosting (hello, sweet tooth!), I powder the sweetener beforehand using my Ninja, and instead of lemon rind, I use a few drops of lemon essential oil. I have a question – the texture of these is so great, I would love to adapt this recipe to make chocolate cupcakes. Any idea how much cocoa I should use?
Sounds awesome Jenn! Glad to hear you and your guests have liked it 🙂 You could cut back about 1/4 cup on the Almond flour and add in 1/3 – 1/2 cup of cocoa powder in place of it.
Def will use this as my fruitcake for christmas minus the raisins and ise fruitcake extract
That’s a great idea Karen!
What size muffin pans does this take? They vary a lot. Could anyone give an idea of how many ounces per spice cake this works out to be? Thanks so much!
I’m not really sure on the weight, but I just used a standard non-stick cupcake tray.
This is an amazing recipe! I made a few little changes and I can tell you that no one would know these were not regular cake muffins. Delicious! Thank you so much!
Mine look great, but they did not bake in a 350 degree oven in 15 minutes. I had to let them bake for about 25 minutes before they were really done. It could be my oven.
Yes, it might be the oven. The rack it’s on will play a role as well. Enjoy!