Sugar Free Keto Chocolate Ricotta Cake. 2g carbs per slice and perfect if you’re looking for a quick and easy cake recipe.
This NUT-FREE cake is moist and delicious, yet sugar free, grain free, gluten free and very low carb, making it a perfect, ultra-low carb dessert. It is one of the easiest cakes I’ve ever made, with all ingredients going into one bowl, so there is minimal washing up to do afterwards.
Having tried numerous versions of the same recipe, using different flours, the winner, hands down, has to be the one with lupin flour.
Although they’re often described as beans, lupins are actually the seeds of the lupin plant. The plant grows in abundance all over the Mediterranean region and is wildly cultivated for crop rotation as well as for the food industry. Yes, it’s a legume, but it has a unique carbohydrate profile that makes it absolutely suitable for the keto lifestyle.
Lupin is a Super-Food
If you ever visit Italy’s grocery stores, you will have no difficulty finding jars of yellow lupins preserved in brine, a bit like olives. Lupin beans have a waxy inedible coat that you discard before eating the soft middle part. You just put them in your mouth, break the husk and spit it out, leaving you to savour the pulp. Italians love munching on these. I am not too keen, to be honest, as I find these yellow lupins to be dry and bland in flavour. They are also expensive to buy and don’t last more then a few days once the jar is opened. Having said that, they are a very healthy snack: ask any old Italian lady and she will sing the praises of lupin for all sorts from curing gout to keeping headaches at bay.
Lupin flour comes from the white, or sweet, lupin plant variety, and is GMO free. It has a high content of protein and fibre, a very low glyceaemic index, and very few carbs. Which is unusual for a flour that comes from a legume. Before you rush to buy lupin flour, however, you need to consider that it is a leguminosae belonging to the same family as peanuts and soybeans, so if you have an allergy to these you may also have an allergy to lupin.
Where to find Lupin Flour
If you’d mentioned lupin flour in 2015, when I first started using it, virtually everyone would have said they’d never heard of it. I even had keto bloggers telling me how “misinformed” I was and that what I was using “wasn’t keto”!
Well, fast forward to 2023, and you can find lupin flour absolutely everywhere. And those same bloggers who berated me are using it too!!!! In fact, I’m both irritated and pleased that so many bloggers have copied my lupin recipes and published them as their own.
Which is a good thing for low-carbers who find those recipes, because lupin’s health benefits are pretty amazing. Not to mention inexpensive and versatile.
How to Make my Sugar Free Keto Chocolate Ricotta Cake
Ricotta, unsweetened cocoa, lupin flour, butter, eggs, erythritol and stevia, salt and baking powder. That’s it. All in one bowl. Mix. Bake. Done. It really is that simple!
Whether on its own, or with a scoop of fiordilatte sugar free ice cream, whipped cream, or warm custard, I’m sure you’ll find this cake a delight.
Enjoy!
Sugar Free Keto Chocolate Ricotta Cake
Ingredients
- 250 g ricotta
- 120 g erythritol
- 1 tsp pure stevia powder
- 3 large eggs or 4 medium
- 100 g butter - unsalted, melted
- 40 g lupin flour
- 70 g unsweetened dark cocoa
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 pinch fine Himalayan pink salt
- 1 sprinkle Sukrin icing 'sugar' or make your own
Instructions
- melt butter and set aside.100 g butter
- pre-heat oven to
180 °C - using a hand held whisk or stick whisk on low speed, mix ricotta and sweeteners.250 g ricotta, 120 g erythritol, 1 tsp pure stevia powder
- add whole eggs one at a time and continue to whisk until very smooth.3 large eggs
- incorporate melted butter and whisk again.
- add sifted flour, sifted cocoa, sifted baking powder and salt, mixing with a spoon as the mix will become quite thick.40 g lupin flour, 70 g unsweetened dark cocoa, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 pinch fine Himalayan pink salt
- butter a 20cm x 20cm square silicone mould or similar.
- pour cake batter into mould, flatten with a spoon or spatula and bake for 30 mins.
- allow the cake to cool down completely, sprinkle icing 'sugar' on top, cut into 9 squares and serve.1 sprinkle Sukrin icing 'sugar'
Notes
Nutrition
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I wrote a comment but it didn’t appear. So I was saying thank you for your answer and I will make it anyway because I just want a very dark chocolatey goodness cake. I’m used to different textures following the keto diet so I’m not bothered about the lack of stickiness or fugdyness.
I made your madeleines and they’re stupendously AMAZING!
Much love from Portugal
Oh! I wonder why… But thank you for re-posting, and glad you liked my Madeleines.
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Hi,
I’ve used this recipe for cakes and muffins probably a hundred times, I love it as a base for more extravagant cakes or just on its own with a cup of tea. Every time I see them rise beautifully in the oven and then deflate as soon as I take them out. I guess due to low gluten structure… is there anything we can do to prevent it? They are absolutely fine after deflating, still fairly airy and light tasting, but they would be so good if they stayed risen!!
Thanks!
Hi Sally, glad you find the recipe useful for other bakes.
You’re absolutely right about the missing gluten causing keto/low-carb bakes to deflate – in most cases.
You could add 1/4-1 tsp xanthan gum and 1-3 TBSP of bamboo fibre, and reducing the other recipe ‘flours’ slightly. They would certainly help.
If you look at my mini Pandori recipe, you’ll see that they don’t collapse once cooled, and that’s thanks to those two magic ingredients.
Can i substitute ricotta with coconut yoghurt ?
Yoghurt has a different consistency, so I would say no, but you could always test it and see how it turns out.
Wow! Just wow! I’m not a fan of almond / coconut flavours so someone suggested I try lupin flour (what?). Turns out it’s relatively well known in Italy where I live, so I bought some to try. I am blown away by how good this cake tastes!! I made half the amount (why?! now I have to make more!) and used just 30g of sweetener but added a small amount of vanilla essence. Rather than 1 cake I made 7 muffins from the mixture, baking for 25 mins. Amazing taste and texture! You wouldn’t say it was ‘keto’, tastes like a normal chocolate cake. Thanks you so much! Do you have any other recipes?!
Thank you! Just type ‘lupin’ in the search box and you’ll see what comes up.
Link to US measurements is broken and takes to amazon or something sales.
Hi, can’t find a broken link. Can you be specific? Thanks.
Is this cake similar to a brownie? I would like to make lupin flour brownies but there’s no recipe in your website for that. Thank you very much!
You’re right, Sara. I don’t have a brownie recipe on my blog. Reason being that every time I’ve tried to create keto brownies I was unable to obtain the sticky-moist texture that I associate with chocolate brownies, and unlike most keto bloggers, I refuse to publish a recipe that looks like the real McCoy but doesn’t taste like it.
That said, yes, this is close.
Thank you for your answer! I’m going to make it anyway and I’ll give you the feedback! I just want that really dark chocolatey goodness of a brownie, I’ve get used to different textures following the keto diet so for me the most important would be a good dark chocolate cake! By the way, I made your madeleines and they’re stupendously AMAZING! If you never considered having a YouTube channel I think you should because your recipes are so far from what’s usually posted there, it would be easy for you to get a really good audience and feedback!
Greetings from Portugal!
Found your comment and restored it – sorry about that. And thank you so much for your kind feedback.
Very good recipe. It was actually my very first try at baking with lupin flour … the cake turned out nice and moist and very chocolatey – thanks for the recipe, I will save it and make it again!
Note – I used brown Swerve sweetener and melted it along with the butter in the microwave which seemed to help getting it mixed well. I then whisked that mixture with the cheese and then whisked in the eggs.
Thank you for the feedback and tip, Sharon, glad you liked it.
Would I be able to use almond or coconut flour, instead of the lupin flour?
Probably. I’d use same amount of almond flour, but only 1/3 coconut flour. Just guessing, though. I haven’t tested either option in this cake.
As someone who is not comfortable baking, cakes are not my forte. However, I needed cake last night so I made your Chocolate ricotta cake.
Thank you so much for this recipe, you’re absolutely right.. it was so easy and idiot proof for a non-baker like me. It was delicious.
Thank you for your kind comment. Glad you enjoyed it!