Keto Lemon Pound Cake
By Carine Claudepierre
Published on 07/15/2019 - Last updated on 08/19/2024
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Learn how to make this Keto Lemon Pound Cake! An easy coconut flour cake with a delicious buttery texture and tangy lemon flavor. This delicious keto lemon bread contains only 3.9 grams of net carbs per slice, and it is a delicious treat to pair with a cup of my bulletproof coffee for breakfast.
Is Lemon Pound Cake Keto?
Classic Lemon Pound Cakes aren’t keto-friendly because they’re made with sugar and all-purpose flour. Two ingredients that are full of carbs.
But this Keto Lemon Pound Cake is very much keto-friendly.
It uses only keto-friendly ingredients such as almond flour and coconut flour, this keto pound cake has only 3.9 grams of net carbs per slice!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
There is no need to be on a keto diet to appreciate the moist and buttery texture of a keto lemon cake.
This cake is also:
- Gluten-Free
- Keto-Friendly
- Low-Carb
- Paleo
- Dairy-Free
How To Make This Keto Lemon Pound Cake
This lemon keto cake recipe has only a few ingredients and steps to follow.
It does not require fancy pieces of equipment or ingredients, and you will quickly make this recipe in 15 minutes of prep.
Ingredients
First, let’s have a look at what you need.
- Eggs – a delicious buttery and moist pound cake that has eggs. Please stick to the recipe and do not try to substitute eggs in this recipe.
- Almond Flour – you can also use almond meal if desired but ultra-fine almond flour is the best option. To learn more about keto flour, read my keto flour guide!
- Coconut Flour – as always in keto baking-uses fresh flour with no lumps for perfect results.
- Coconut Oil – or melted butter if preferred.
- Lemon Juice – fresh is the best if you can. Lemons are great keto-friendly fruits! If you don’t have a juicer, read my guide on how to juice a lemon without a juicer.
- Lemon Zest – this is optional. I recommend you use untreated organic lemon if you intend to use the zest. This avoids adding nasties to your cake. A few drops of the lemon extract also work!
- Sugar-Free Crystal Sweetener – as always I love to use a crystal blend of Monk Fruit sweetener and erythritol, but powdered erythritol or Xylitol also are great options. Check out my review of keto-friendly sweeteners to convert from one to another.
Making The Cake
Next, let’s talk about the most important part of this recipe: ingredient temperature.
While this is a very straightforward keto lemon pound cake recipe there is one trick!
You must use eggs at room temperature. In fact, baking with coconut oil involves using ingredients at room temperature.
The reason is pretty simple, coconut oil gets solid under 76°F (24°C).
It means that if your eggs are straight out of the fridge they will create lots of coconut oil lumps.
The best is to store your eggs out of the fridge the day before or at least 4 hours before making this recipe.
Otherwise, use melted butter instead of coconut oil. This will not happen with butter.
Storage Instructions
This keto lemon bread can be stored in the fridge for up to 4 days in an airtight container.
You can also freeze this almond flour pound cake. First, slice the whole cake into 16 slices. Then, freeze the keto lemon loaf into a zip-lock bag or in an airtight container.
Make sure the slices do not overlap, it makes it easier to defrost one by one.
Finally, defrost your slices the day before at room temperature.
The next day, toast the slices in the toaster if you like. Of course, if you freeze your sugar-free lemon cake with the frosting on top don’t bring it to the toaster.
Enjoy plain or spread some sugar-free jam on top.
Frequently Asked Questions
This is probably the healthiest coconut flour lemon cake recipe you will find around. Let me tell you why. First, it is sugar-free, low-carb, and dairy-free, yes eggs are not dairy.
Dairy products come from bovine animals only include milk, cream, butter, and cheese. So, this keto lemon bread is dairy-free meaning it is easy to digest.
Next, it is a high-protein cake perfect to serve at breakfast or for a fulfilling afternoon tea. Proteins keep you full for longer and you won’t feel hungry after one slice.
Finally, it is a gluten-free lemon cake high in fiber from coconut flour. Fibers are part of healthy gut health and stabilize blood sugar levels.
This keto lemon pound cake has only 3.9 grams of net carbs per slice.
More Keto Baking Recipes
We all love a good piece of cake and I have plenty of other delicious keto cake recipes for you to try.
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Keto Lemon Pound Cake
Ingredients
- 5 large Eggs at room temperature
- ¾ cup Granulated Sweetener or xylitol
- ½ cup Coconut Oil or melted butter
- 2 cups Almond Flour
- ¼ cup Coconut Flour
- 1 tablespoon Baking Powder
- ¼ cup Lemon Juice
- ½ tablespoon Lemon Zest optional
Lemon glazing
- 1 cup Powdered Erythritol
- 2 tablespoons Lemon Juice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a 9-inch x 5-inch loaf pan with a piece of parchment paper. Slightly oil the paper to make sure the pound cake doesn't stick to the pan. Set aside.
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar-free crystal sweetener, melted coconut oil (or butter), and lemon juice. Ensure that your coconut oil is not burning hot, or it will 'cook' the eggs and create lumps. All your ingredients must be roughly at the same temperature, think room temperature, especially the eggs and lemon juice. Cold ingredients just out of the fridge will solidify the coconut oil creating oil lumps. Otherwise, use melted butter to prevent this to happens. Set aside.
- In a different large mixing bowl, whisk together the almond flour, coconut flour, and baking powder. Stir to combine the flours evenly.
- Pour the liquid ingredients onto the dry ingredients.
- Stir all the ingredients together with a baking spoon until it forms a thick cake batter with no lumps. Combine for at least 2 minutes to make sure the coconut flour fiber absorbs the moisture.
- Transfer the cake batter onto the loaf pan. Make sure you are using the same loaf pan size, or it will impact your baking time.
- Place the loaf pan in the center of your oven and bake at 180°C (350°F), fan-forced mode, if you can, for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, decrease the temperature to 160°C (320°F) and cover the loaf pan with a loose piece of foil. This will prevent the top from burning, and the middle will bake slowly. Keep baking for 45-60 minutes in total, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the pound cake comes out with little to no crumbs on it.
- Cool for 10 minutes in the loaf pan, then lift out the pound cake from the pan using the parchment paper.
- Transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely. It is a thick cake, and it usually takes 3 hours to fully cool. Be patient and add the lemon glazing on the cake when it reaches room temperature, not before!
Lemon glazing
- To make the lemon glazing, whisk together the sugar-free powdered erythritol with lemon juice until no lumps remain. If needed, add more lemon juice to get a thinner glazing or more powdered sweetener to get thicker glazing.
- Drizzle over the cooled pound cake.
- You can place the cake for a few minutes in the freezer to set the glazing if too runny.
- Store your cake in the pantry on a cake box for up to 3 or 4 days. Slice before serving to keep the cake moist.
- Enjoy as breakfast, teatime, plain, or with sugar-free chia seed jam.
How to freeze your pound cake?
- Slice the cake into 16 slices before freezing. Freeze the cake in an airtight box, making sure the slice doesn't overlap, or place a piece of parchment paper between each slice to make it easier to defrost individually. Defrost the slice the day before at room temperature, on a plate, don't overlap the slices.
- The next day, you can toast the slices in a toaster before serving.
Tools
Getting Started What Is Keto? Macro Calculator Sweetener Converter Intermittent Fasting Keto Fruits Keto Vegetables Keto Flours Fighting Keto Flu Healthy SweetenersWant My Kitchen Equipment?
Nutrition
About The Author
Hi, I'm Carine, the food blogger, author, recipe developer, published author of a cookbook, and founder of Sweet As Honey.
I have an Accredited Certificate in Nutrition and Wellness obtained in 2014 from Well College Global (formerly Cadence Health). I'm passionate about sharing all my easy and tasty recipes that are both delicious and healthy. My expertise in the field comes from my background in chemistry and years of following a keto low-carb diet. But I'm also well versed in vegetarian and vegan cooking since my husband is vegan.
I now eat a more balanced diet where I alternate between keto and a Mediterranean Diet
Cooking and Baking is my true passion. In fact, I only share a small portion of my recipes on Sweet As Honey. Most of them are eaten by my husband and my two kids before I have time to take any pictures!
All my recipes are at least triple tested to make sure they work and I take pride in keeping them as accurate as possible.
Browse all my recipes with my Recipe Index.
I hope that you too find the recipes you love on Sweet As Honey!
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Disclaimer
The recipes, instructions, and articles on this website should not be taken or used as medical advice. You must consult with your doctor before starting on a keto or low-carb diet. The nutritional data provided on Sweetashoney is to be used as indicative only.
The nutrition data is calculated using WP Recipe Maker. Net Carbs is calculated by removing the fiber and some sweeteners from the total Carbohydrates. As an example, a recipe with 10 grams of Carbs per 100 grams that contains 3 grams of erythritol and 5 grams of fiber will have a net carbs content of 2 grams. Some sweeteners are excluded because they are not metabolized.
You should always calculate the nutritional data yourself instead of relying on Sweetashoney's data. Sweetashoney and its recipes and articles are not intended to cure, prevent, diagnose, or treat any disease. Sweetashoney cannot be liable for adverse reactions or any other outcome resulting from the use of recipes or advice found on the Website.
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I keep having the same problem baking with almond flour. My batters are way too dry. I then try to fix by assing more butter and an extra egg as I did for this. Still came out super thick. What am I doing wrong? I am using superfine almond flour.
Are you making the recipe in cups or gram? If it is too thick it means you are missing liquid. It can be that your eggs are too small, I am using large eggs, or you add a bit moe flour and it dry the batter. Make sure you lightly pack the cups when measuring and level up. Let me know, XOXO Carine
I made it today. I used ghee butter and Swerve for both cake and glaze. I also used homemade gluten free baking powder mixing tartar cream and baking soda. Great recipe, thanks!
Thanks for sharing you tips ! I am glad you love the recipe, XOXO Carine
I have only been doing keto for a very short time. The couple of dessert recipes I have tried were flops. This dessert came out amazing. Thank you so much for sharing. I must check out other recipes that you are sharing.
It makes me so happy that you found my blog! I have been on keto for years an I love desserts so here you wil find all my favorite baking/desserts creation 100% keto friendly. I can’t wait to see what you are trying next time! Enjoy the blog recipes, XOXO Carine
Such a lovely recipe! I made this a couple of weeks ago but melted the frosting ingredients so that I could turn this into lemon drizzle cake. It was moist and so tasty!! So, I’ve decided to make again today ????. Thank you ????
That is AMAZING ! Thank you for making my recipes again and again. I am so glad you found my blog, XOXO Carine.
I just made the lemon pound , and it smells beautiful , and tastes so as well .
Could I add raw coconut chips to the recipie and how much please ? Bev
It would definitely taste amazing, starts with 1/2 cup of unsweetened coconut chip. Enjoy ! XOXO Carine
I have some strawberries that are super sweet but have some soft spots on them. I was thinking of making this recipe and topping with strawberries instead. Anyways I do not have either of the sweeteners that you recommend. Can I use coconut sugar, honey, or maple syrup? What would you recommend for the amount to use in this?
Coconut sugar will work just fine, same amount, it is not keto but very healthy too. Regarding the strawberries, they will add juice to the bread and it will be very moist.Enjoy the recipe, XOXO Carine
Hi! Would I be able to use coconut sugar for the glaze as well? Thanks!
No because you need a powdered sweetener for the glaze. Coconut sugar is a coarse crystal sugar that won’t work here or you can blend it on high speed to make a powder! This way that will work but the color of the glaze will be brown as coconut sugar is very dark. Enjoy, XOXO Carine
I was a little afraid to use 5 eggs (seemed like a lot) but it turned out great! thank you:)
Thank you! I m glad it did. Enjoy the recipes on the blog, XOXO Carine
I used bob’s red mills egg replacer and it came out great flavor wise but a little gummy texture wise, it also did not rise very much. It’s about the height of a thick biscotti. Any suggestions on how to get it to rise more?
The recipe is made to use eggs. Any egg replacer I used doesn’t create a cake but a flat mass, moit and fragile. That is why I don’t recommend egg replacer for this recipe, I am sorry.
I would love to try to make this soon! Can I replace eggs with flax eggs??
I am sorry it won’t work with flaxeggs.
I’ve been getting heaps of mandarins in my CSA box and need ways to use them up. Could I substitute mandarines for lemons? What do you think would happen if I also threw in some mandarin pieces into the batter?
Yes you can replace the lemon juice by mandarin juice however mandarin pieces will make the bread very moist. Enjoy, Carine
I am excited to make this! I only have Swerve confectioners, would that be alright in place of the granulated Swerve?
Yes that should work, use my keto sweetener converter here to convert swerve crystal into confectionner, it will tell you exactly how much you nee to use in the recipe. XOXO Carine
Absolutely terrible! It tastes like lemony eggs!!!
I am sorry it wasn’t to your taste.
Lovely recipe! Made with lemon and coconut oil and it came out lo Ely, but far too much taste of the coconut for me so decided to try next time with half and half or just plain butter.
Then had a yen for a coffee and walnut loaf so subbed out your lemon and subbed in some super strong espresso (like rocket fuel levels) for the lemon and added a big handful of chopped walnuts at the end. Omg.
BTW you say here in one place put the cake in the oven fan assisted at 180c – but that’s 200c in a regular oven. In another place you just say 180c. It would of huge help to your readers if you were to specify – like 200c (180c fan assisted) which a lot of writers do because those temps aren’t interchangeable.
MASSIVE fan of your website (if not the 8 million pop ups) and insta feed. You’re a huge inspiration to use all so thank you! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I am glad you love the cake. If you are not a fan of coconut flavor, refined coconut oil has no coconut flavor at all and will keep the same texture. Butter is great too, it creates a more buttery, moist cake that I love that as well. I recommend 180C (fan forced if you can!) if you don’t have a fan forced mode, still bake this particular cake at 180C and not 200C or the cake burns easily on top. This happens because almond flour is very sensitive to high temperature and burn easily passed 180C that is why you either use fan-forced and it bake faster or regular mode for longer, but keep the same temp. We are working on fixing the instagram feed, which is a tech issue that need some follow up from an IT team. Unfortunately with the current world situation, it takes a bit more time to achieve things. Take care and enjoy the recipes, XOXO Carine
This cake is exactly what I needed to satisfy my Starbucks lemon cake cravings. Thank You so much
Thanks ! I am glad you love it, XOXO Carine
Came out perfect! I didn’t make the glaze though. I couldn’t wait to try it :). Love love love!
I know that feeling ! Too long to wait when food smells so good. Enjoy, XOXO Carine
This looks amazing! I’m interested in finding out if I can substitute monk fruit for the glaze? Can’t tolerate the after taste of erythritol. Thanks!
Sure, you can use allulose or xylitol too. Enjoy! XOXO Carine
This is delicious I’ve made it five or six times now the next time I make it I plan on taking frozen blueberries chopping them and adding it to the mix
Thanks! You can also try my lemon bluberry pound cake, very similar to the lemon blueberry pound cake recipe. Enjoy, XOXO Carine.
I’ve made this is several times and love it. Next time I’m going to take some frozen blueberries chop them and add to the batter.
This recipe is simple and delicious! I’ve been enjoying it with my morning bulletproof coffee. I’ve been keto(semi consistently) for years but rarely bake sweets, mostly because I hate the fake sugar taste but also because I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. This cake hits the spot for a sweet treat with substance. The lemon flavor masks the fake-y taste.
I followed the recipe exactly with the addition of 1 tablespoon of poppyseed, 1 tablespoon of yogurt and double the lemon zest. I halved the icing recipe and did a light drizzle instead of a full glaze. This is the perfect amount of sweetness for me.
I’m planning on making it again this weekend in my muffin tin(12 small). Any advice on cooking time?
Thank you so much for the lovely review! The poppyseed and lemon are always a delicious combo, great idea! Uusally, if you bake in 12 muffins case the baking time will be more between 35-40 minutes. Insert a pick in the middle of one muffin and if it comes out clean, it means they are ready ! Enjoy the recipe and share your picture with me on Instagram if you want to! XOXO Carine.
🙁 I don’t know what went wrong with this, but I ended up with a very moist lump – it was discolored and not a pretty yellow, collapsed in the middle and was very moist. (I was very careful about my coconut oil, also, plus the eggs and lemon juice were certainly room temperature) The glaze also didn’t get drizzly for me at those measurements, but was more of a paste, though the taste was amazing!
I am sorry to hear that! If the cake is too moist it means you are missing either fiber (this happens when you didn’t measure coconut flour precisely and you are missing some) or your almond flour is coarse and doesn’t abosrob moisture. Next time I will recommend using ultra fine blanched almond flour and pack, level up your cups precisely and it should come out great. Regarding the icing, it is easy to thin it adding 1 tespoon water at a time until it reach your favorite consistency. Enjoy the recipe, XOXO Carine.