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Low-Carb Red Velvet Cake/Cupcakes

[heart_this] · · 16 Comments

Happy August, Friends!❤️One month closer to fall weather, woohoo!! At this point in the summer my enthusiasm for the heat has usually waned and been replaced by a countdown mentality with excuses to start posting pumpkin recipes early–I haven’t quite reached that level of desperation yet, but be warned, it won’t be long!  The good news is, I have a simply scrumptious recipe for you today that I think you’re going to go nuts for! I know, I don’t like to sound overconfident, but this low-carb red velvet cake is the real deal!

Low-Carb Red Velvet Cake/Cupcakes

And you can use our Swerve Sprinkles to add flair to the top of your cake! That recipe can be found at the end of our Keto Devil’s food Cake Post. You can cut them into any shape you like and go crazy with the colors. We recommend topping the cake with your sprinkles right before serving. They add such a lovely touch-both visually and flavor/texture-wise.

I have to talk about the taste for a moment–these layers are sweet fluffiness with just the perfect touch of chocolate–rich, dreamy and light all at once, like a blushed cloud. I got so excited after our first test, I knew we had a winner!!

Low-Carb Red Velvet Cake/Cupcakes

Did we mention this recipe is also perfect for cupcakes? We used the crumbs of the 12th cupcake as topping for the other 11. If you need that last cupcake, you can instead add color to your frosting or use our Swerve Sprinkles to add a decorative touch.

Keto Red Velvet Cupcakes

Happy Baking, Friends!! Enjoy the recipe! 🙂

Easy + Delicious Low-Carb Red Velvet Cake/Cupcake Recipe

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Low Carb Red Velvet Cake/Cupcakes

Low-Carb Red Velvet Cake/Cupcakes


★★★★★

5 from 3 reviews

  • Author: Lila Ruth
  • Prep Time: 15-30min
  • Cook Time: 20-25 min
  • Total Time: 45min to an hour
  • Yield: 1 cake or 12 cupcakes 1x
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Description

5.4 net carbs per serving

**See Keto Sprinkle Recipe Info Below


Scale

Ingredients

  • 1+ 3/4 cups almond flour (Bob’s Red Mill)
  • 2/3 cup  Swerve Confectioner Sweetener (No substitutes)
  • 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder (Hain brand is grain-free)
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp whole milk   (or full fat coconut milk)
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons red food coloring (Watkins brand is a more natural alternative). Gel color is more concentrated, only use about 1 tsp or less.

Frosting

  • 1 eight oz container cream cheese, room temperature (Kite Hill for dairy-free)
  • 2.5 tablespoons butter, softened (Earth Balance Spread for dairy-free)
  • 1 cup Swerve Confectioner Sweetener
  • 2.5 tablespoon whole milk (or coconut milk)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • **Double Frosting For Layer Cake

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  2. Start with your wet ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together your milk, eggs, olive oil, vanilla extract, food coloring and apple cider vinegar. Whisk until smooth, but do not over-blend.
  3. Then sift the Swerve Confectioner, cocoa powder, baking soda and baking powder over top and incorporate into batter with whisk.
  4. Finally, sift your almond flour into the batter-be patient, it takes just a few minutes. Using a large spoon to push it back and forth over the sieve can speed it up. When you’re down to the last bit, you can just add that in unsifted. Mix the sifted almond flour into batter until smooth. Use batter immediately.
  5. For Cupcakes: Spoon batter into muffin liners 2/3 of the way full. Making sure your oven is preheated, bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, then rotate muffin tin by 180 degrees and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Keep in mind, oven times can occasionally vary, so keep an eye on them. Remove from oven and let them cool COMPLETELY before removing from pan. If you’re in a rush, place them in the freezer for 25 minutes, works like a charm!
  6. For Layer Cake: 2 Layer- make sure to line the bottoms of two 8 inch cake pans with parchment paper and grease the sides. Pour batter evenly in to both pans. Smooth the surface of the batter with a wet spatula. Use the same method for 3 layer, but use these thin pans and divide batter 3 ways-each layer will be thin.
  7. Place layers into oven and bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Carefully rotate the pans 180 degrees and lightly cover with foil at the halfway mark. At 20-25 minutes the layers will be ready to come out, they’ll still be a touch soft. Let them cool COMPLETELY and once they are cool, run a knife around the edges and carefully flip them over onto a cooling rack or plates and let them rest for another 5-10 minutes before frosting. While you’re waiting for your cake layers or cupcakes to cool, go ahead and blend together your frosting.
  8. With a hand mixer, blend together your softened cream cheese and butter.
  9. Add milk + vanilla extract and blend again. Finally, sift in Swerve, salt and then blend one last time. Chilling the frosting will thicken it. You can also add more Swerve for a thicker texture or more milk to thin it out. *Double frosting recipe for layer cake.
  10. Pipe or spread frosting onto cupcakes, serve and enjoy!! For layer cake, it is easiest to first freeze the layers. Then frost and stack each layer, finally frost the top and sides. We used our Swerve sprinkles for the pink and red topping, you can find that recipe at the bottom of our Keto Devil’s Food Cake Post.

Keywords: keto, grainfree, glutenfree, lowcarb, dairy-free, redvelvet, cake, cupcakes, birthday, party

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @lilaruthgrainfree on Instagram and hashtag it #lilaruthgrainfree

Filed Under: Cakes, Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free, Grain-Free, Keto, Low-Carb, Sweet

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Annie says

    August 6, 2019 at 9:11 am

    Oh! How wonderful that looks, and it does sound very doable!! Will be dessert in my house very soon—-LOVE your recipes!!

    ★★★★★

    Reply
    • Lila Ruth says

      August 6, 2019 at 12:34 pm

      Awww thank you so much Annie!! That makes me so happy to hear that, I hope this will be a favorite for you-it’s a new favorite for us!! 😀

      Reply
  2. Amy says

    August 6, 2019 at 12:58 pm

    You don’t know how long I’ve been looking for a grain-free red velvet cake recipe!!! It’s my son’s favorite and after success with your paleo chocolate cake for his birthday, this one is going to get made next! 🙂 I do have a question: my son and I have a hard time with erythritol (makes our bellies hurt). Is there a paleo alternative that we could use with this cake?

    Thank you for your recipes!

    Reply
    • Lila Ruth says

      August 6, 2019 at 1:19 pm

      Oh thank you so much Amy, you are so kind!! 😀 I hope you guys will love this cake too!! I think for the cake itself, you can substitute with coconut sugar – I would just run it through the food processor to make it fine-it will darken the color a bit, but still be nice and red. And for the frosting, I think a variation of our SCD Cream cheese icing could work! If you can’t do dairy cream cheese, I would use 1 container of dairy-free Kite Hill cream cheese (room temp) with 6 tbsp softened butter, 2.5 tbsp honey and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Cream the butter and “cream cheese” together first, blend in honey and vanilla until smooth. Refrigerate until solidified and blend again-at this point the frosting will stay thick at room temp. Since I haven’t yet tested the cake with coconut sugar, I would recommend first making cupcakes, they always seem to handle subs beautifully!

      Reply
  3. Noelle/Too Precious For Processed says

    August 6, 2019 at 5:23 pm

    Wow! Where to start with this one…it’s beautiful! Swerve sprinkles? You have though of it all Catherine 😉 Red Velvet is one of our favorites and I love that this is grain free with a healthier food coloring option. Perfection!

    Reply
    • Lila Ruth says

      August 6, 2019 at 6:02 pm

      Oh thank you Noelle, that is so very kind of you to say!! 😀 Red velvet really is such a fun favorite, such a happy cake.

      Reply
  4. Stacey says

    August 10, 2019 at 2:10 pm

    Omigosh, these cupcakes were beyond AMAZING!! I actually don’t like frosting so I just added a thin layer and they came out awesome.

    ★★★★★

    Reply
    • Lila Ruth says

      August 10, 2019 at 3:06 pm

      This is music to my ears, thank you so much!!! So thrilled you’re enjoying the cupcakes! 😀

      Reply
  5. Kim Lange says

    August 13, 2019 at 9:10 pm

    Such a gorgeous red velvet cake Catherine! That texture is perfection! Pinning! xo

    ★★★★★

    Reply
    • Lila Ruth says

      August 14, 2019 at 3:39 pm

      Thanks so much my friend, I’m always drooling over your amazing recipes!! 😀

      Reply
  6. Nik C. says

    November 3, 2019 at 4:28 pm

    Would the bake time change if one used a bundt pan?

    Reply
    • Lila Ruth says

      November 4, 2019 at 2:10 am

      Hi! I wouldn’t recommend a bundt pan for this particular cake as it does not tend to release well in that type of pan-it works beautifully for cupcakes, layers or a 9″ square pan. If you’d like to try it though, I would bake it for 45 minutes, tightly securing foil at the 20 minute mark-this would allow the cake to steam, cook through while staying nice and moist. Let the cake cool completely in the bundt pan before running the edges with a knife and flipping over onto a plate. Hope this helps and you enjoy the recipe!

      Reply
  7. Julie says

    November 5, 2019 at 10:36 pm

    Let me first say that this is my first attempt of Keto Baking (especially using Almond Flour)…. I dont know what I did wrong. I did it as a 2 layer cake, so I did double the icing recipe. My layers were very thin, but I went with it. Then when tasting it….. It taste to much “sweetnery”, the cake it’s self tasted different but decent.I’m just not use to the Almond Flour texture. Maybe it all had to do with the sweetner I used (Stevia), because I dont like Swerve’s “cooling effect”. Everything else I followed to a T. I love to bake and cook and know my way around a kitchen but this just didnt work for me. Please tell me what went wrong. I feel like I failed you. Lol

    Reply
    • Lila Ruth says

      November 6, 2019 at 12:21 am

      Oh you did not fail me at all!! I’m so thankful that you shared your experience (especially from a fellow baker!), it allows me to troubleshoot and it gives insight to others looking to the comments for guidance. I’m so very sorry it did not turn out great for you, I have a couple of recommendations I hope help should you decide to make it again. I agree that Swerve can have a cooling effect in some things, particularly frosting. But I find it works so beautifully in actual cakes and breads in the right amount. The stevia would be too sweet here in the amount that’s recommended for the Swerve, and it also changes the texture of the cake a touch and those things may have contributed to the result. I’ve also gone in and modified the instructions to ensure the fluffiest texture possible and recommending only Swerve for the cake itself. Thank you again so much for sharing and I truly hope it turns out beautifully for you if you try it again, I’d love to hear from you if you do!! 😀

      Reply
  8. Annie-Rose says

    November 21, 2019 at 3:34 pm

    Hi Catherine do you think this recipe would work with xylitol?

    Reply
    • Lila Ruth says

      November 21, 2019 at 4:00 pm

      Hello, thanks so much for your comment! We have not tested this with xylitol, but xylitol is a good substitute for Swerve as it’s usually a 1:1 conversion. I so wish that I could tell you unequivocally offhand that it will work just as well as the Swerve, we would love to hear your experience with the xylitol if you try it. I think going forward we will test with both the Swerve and Xylitol to provide an alternative and retest these recipes already published as well with additional sweeteners to accommodate the variety in sweetening/sugarless options.

      Reply

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Grandma Lila Ruth

I’m Catherine, a grain-free recipe developer. Here you’ll find recipes free from both grains and gluten. Select recipes are also SCD friendly, keto, dairy-free and or vegan. And it is with honor that I mention that this blog was inspired by my dear grandmother, Lila Ruth. It is dedicated to her memory. Learn more →

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