Sugar Free Lemon Ricotta Sponge Cake to Celebrate the start of 2016.
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!!!
I actually made this sugar free low carb beauty yesterday, but I’m enjoying my first mega-slice this morning with a lovely coconut espresso coffee. What a lovely way to start the new year!!! Coffee and home-baked keto cake. Best combo in the world.
Is Eating More Healthily Your New Year Resolution?
If you’ve stumbled across my site as part of your new year’s resolution to eat healthy and maybe lose weight, you’re in luck. This is where you will find an array of low carb, high fat, grain free, sugar free and mostly gluten free, ketogenic recipe ideas. My blog is still in its infancy, so please accept my apologies for the lacklustre style and poor photography. I’ll get there eventually…
My philosophy on food and why I choose certain ingredients.
I bake with a lot of ‘alternative’ ingredients, and you will find links to these supplies throughout my recipes. I also prefer to use organic, fresh, additive free ingredients and products, even though they cost more. In my mind, it would feel paradoxical to eat lchf in order to improve my health and wellbeing, but not care about the origins of my food. I therefore avoid buying products full of nasties, or products that are grown unethically or are lab made. Many of my supplies cannot be found in local stores. I mainly stock up from Amazon because: firstly, it’s where I find the vast majority of my baking ingredients under one roof; secondly: I can buy in bulk easily; thirdly: there are organic options not available in shops; and lastly: I like the discounts available for recurrent purchases – for which, as an experimental food blogger, I am very grateful.
My ingredients aren’t always the cheapest, but they are always the best quality for the price. For example, pure stevia powder is in most of my sweet creations. I don’t buy the cheapest, but the one that has the most intense sweetness with the least aftertaste. According to my taste buds. Erythritol often accompanies stevia in my sweet recipes. In my opinion, the 2 complement each other well and give the best results.
I have tested and continue to test myriad ingredients all the time, and I only choose what I consider to be the best. So to make my readers’ life easier, I always include links, within my recipes, for the ingredients that cannot be locally sourced. Obviously, no one is obliged to follow my philosophy on food or to buy from my links, so by all means feel free to do whatever suits you.
My Gold Rules for every sugar free low carb creation I make.
1) It has to be tasty.
2) It cannot be detected as low carb and sugar free by a standard western diet individual.
3) If it is a rendition of a well known, full carb, sugar loaded recipe, it has to taste and smell like the original or be very close.
4) The recipe must be easy to follow.
An easy, low carb, sugar free lemon ricotta sponge cake for everyone to enjoy.
Whether you’re a low carb beginner or veteran, I am pretty certain that this sugar free lemon ricotta sponge cake recipe will be one that you make time and time again. It is delicious simplicity in itself. If you don’t like pine nuts you can top the sponge with toasted sliced almonds or leave out nuts altogether and sprinkle some icing sugar on top instead.
This cake calls for a little lupin flour to achieve the perfect consistency. If you have a peanut allergy, you might want to avoid lupin, just in case. You can substitute it with almond flour.
All that is left for you to do is to get baking.
Enjoy!
- Yield: 12
- Serving: 1
- Calories: 168
- Fat: 14g
- Net Carbs: 1.7g
- Protein: 7g
- 100g unsalted butter - melted and cooled
- zest of 2 lemons + juice of 1
- 1.5 tsp pure stevia powder (U.S. option HERE)
- 140g erythritol (U.S. option HERE)
- 3 medium eggs - room temperature and separated
- 250g ricotta
- 50g fine almond flour (U.S. option HERE)
- 50g ground almonds (U.S. option HERE)
- 20g lupin flour (U.S. option HERE) (world-wide delivery option HERE - use code QUEENKETO5 for discount at checkout)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 25g toasted pine nuts or sliced almonds (optional)
- pre heat oven to 160ºC fan (180ºC static).
- whisk egg whites until stiff and set aside.
- whisk ricotta, stevia and erythritol until very smooth, then incorporate egg yolks one at a time.
- add lemon zest and juice and butter and whisk until well blended.
- add sifted baking powder and flours.
- fold in egg whites.
- pour into a buttered silicone mould (20cm x 20cm) and flatten with a spoon or spatula.
- sprinkle nuts (optional) on top and bake for approx 25 mins.
- allow to cool in the mould, cut into slices and serve.
Hi Antya, I made your sponge cake, only replaced lemons for oranges (+ made a little marmelade from the remaining oranges, pectin and erythritol). It was really delicious, thank you!
Nice job, Pavla, sounds great! Thank YOU for visiting my site.
Hi Antya!
I made your sponge cake yesterday, only replaced lemons for oranges, it was realy delicious.
And because the cake was sweetened only with a little protein with stevia, I made jam from the remaining oranges (with citrus pectin and erythritol).
Amazing breakfast 🙂 Thank you!
Hey Pavla, sorry to reply so late. I love the idea of oranges instead of lemons. Nice one! Thank you for leaving your feedback.
Hi I made this cake and it is delicious but I used Xylitol as my sweetener which was great. One question I did not see where to add the egg yolks in the method so added them with the butter. Did you intend to leave them out? Thanks.
Hi Val, thanks for the heads up. It was an omission, but I’ve now added it.
Your blog is very interesting, i love Italian kitchen – however I do not understand why in most of yours recipients you use some leguminous flours with are forbidden in lchf (and i am allergic for them too 🙁 ..)
Hi there and thank you for your comments. There are no ‘forbidden’ foods in lchf or keto. The reason legumes are best avoided is because they tend to be higher in carbs than other vegetables. However, unlike paleo, which strictly excludes certain foods, keto and vlchf aim to keep carbs intake below a certain level in order to achieve and maintain ketosis. Therefore, when I use ingredients, my main priority is the net carbs count, not the source. Lupin flour has a LOWER carb content than coconut flour, for example, so it’s absolutely fine. If you have an allergy to legumes, which includes lupin, I would advise you to use almond flour instead.
Top really top.
Thank you!!!! 🙂
I made the ricota cake Antya. I will tag the pic. It doesn’t look like yours as I did not have the almond flakes or stuff to put on the top. I did not have lupin flour so I tried 20 g of fuba/ polenta fina. Love your recipes. Tks for sharing.
Well done and thanks for your msg! I don’t mind anyone improvising and changing my recipes. Just be aware that polenta flour is very high in carbs, so eat smaller portions!Lupin flour is cheap if you know where to buy it from.The one I’m using at the moment comes from here: https://queenketo.com/recommends/lupin-flour-3/ use sponsorship code CmV5vIU8 for 5% discount.