Keto Zucchini Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
By Carine Claudepierre
Published on 08/14/2020 - Last updated on 08/19/2024
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This moist, gluten-free Keto Zucchini Cake with wonderful spices flavors, and crunchy pecans. The best part, one slice has only 3.2 grams of net carbs for a sweet keto breakfast to pair with your bulletproof coffee.
If your garden is full of zucchini and you have no idea what to do with them, try to bake a zucchini cake or zucchini bread. Zucchini is a keto-friendly vegetable that adds the most beautiful moist texture to cakes! On top of that, zucchini have amazing nutrients for your health!
This zucchini cake is a moist, light, and fluffy cake baked in a 9-inch round or square pan. Zucchini cakes are not as dense as zucchini bread recipes. It has the same spice flavors as zucchini bread, with crunchy nuts and moist grated zucchini all over the crumb. This is a perfect breakfast cake or coffee cake.
Ingredients and Substitutions
All you need are:
- Eggs – at room temperature.
- Erythritol – find out how to convert sweeteners on my sweetener converter.
- Vanilla – for flavor.
- Heavy Cream – or canned coconut cream if paleo, shake the can before measuring. Learn why heavy cream is keto-friendly.
- Coconut Flour – This moisture-absorbent flour gives the cake its texture.
- Almond Flour – Don’t swap for more coconut flour, or the crumb will be too dry. Learn how to choose your keto flour.
- Grated Zucchini – With water removed. See the next paragraph for tips on how to squeeze out water from shredded zucchini. Zucchini is one of the most keto-friendly vegetables.
- Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Ginger – This spice combo gives the cake a fall flavor.
- Chopped Pecan Nuts – Or walnuts or sugar-free chocolate chips.
- Baking Powder – For a fluffy texture.
For the cake frosting, you will need:
- Butter – soft, at room temperature.
- Cream Cheese – soft at room temperature.
- Powdered Sweetener – Use your favorite powdered sweetener, from erythritol to allulose or tagatose.
- Unsweetened Almond Milk – Add up to 2 tablespoons if your frosting is too thick and dense.
How To Make Zucchini Cake
Before you start making this recipe, make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature, especially the eggs and cream cheese.
This keto zucchini cake recipe is very easy to make in one bowl. There are a few important steps to follow to avoid a watery cake that won’t bake. Let me guide you through this!
- Weigh each ingredient individually in a small bowl. This is a great way to be accurate in baking.
- Shred the zucchini finely in a food processor or with a hand grater. I recommended keeping the zucchini skin on and shredding as thin as you can for the best texture.
- Then, place the shredded zucchini in the center of a towel.
- Gather the four corners of the towel together and squeeze as much as you can to extract all the water from the zucchini. This is the most important part of your zucchini cake recipe. In fact, zucchini are made at 80% of water, and keeping too much water will make the cake watery, and eventually, it won’t bake at all.
- Combine all the liquid ingredients in a mixing bowl.
- Add the dry ingredients.
- Combine the batter with a beater.
- Add the shredded zucchini and incorporate it into the batter.
- Spread the batter on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Bake the keto zucchini cake for 35-40 minutes at 350°F (180°C).
- This zucchini cake won’t be as delicious without its cream cheese frosting. However, remember to always cool the cake for at least 2 hours before spreading your frosting on top of the cake. Also, always prepare the frosting just before using it.
- In fact, making the frosting ahead and storing it in the fridge hardens the cream cheese, making it difficult to spread on top of the cake.
Frequently Asked Questions
For paleo followers who don’t eat dairy, you can swap the heavy cream with canned coconut cream in the cake batter. Simply shake the can before measuring for precision. Regarding the frosting, you can replace the cream cheese with pure thick coconut yogurt. Simply combine yogurt with powdered sweetener and vanilla, no need for butter or coconut oil.
This is a very moist cake, and you must bake it in a 9-inch round or square pan. This recipe won’t bake as a loaf of bread. It will be too moist. However, if you prefer a zucchini bread recipe, I have two you can try: chocolate zucchini bread or zucchini pecan bread.
No, this cake has no zucchini flavor at all. Zucchini are used in baking to add a moist texture and nutritional value.
More Sweet Zucchini Recipes
I love baking with zucchini, and I have many other keto cakes, cookies, and bread for you to try.
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Keto Zucchini Cake
Ingredients
- 5 large Eggs at room temperature
- ¼ cup Heavy Cream or coconut cream if dairy-free
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
- ¾ cup Granulated Sweetener
- 2 ¼ cups Almond Flour
- ¼ cup Coconut Flour
- 1 ¼ cup Grated Zucchini unpeeled, pat dry, weigh after the zucchini water has been removed (165g, 5.8oz).
- 3 teaspoons Baking Powder
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- 1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon Nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon Ginger
- 1 teaspoon Lemon Zest
- ⅔ cup Chopped Pecan
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 8 oz Cream Cheese
- 2 tablespoons Unsalted Butter
- ⅓ cup Powdered Erythritol
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 2 tablespoons Unsweetened Almond Milk beat in if frosting is too thick
Maple Pecans – optional
- ⅓ cup Pecan Nuts chopped
- 2 tablespoons Sugar-Free Maple Syrup
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a 9-inch x 9-inch square baking pan with parchment paper. Spray oil all other the pan and baking paper. Set aside.
Prepare the zucchini
- Place the grated zucchini in the center of a clean towel, wrap and squeeze hard to extract all the zucchini water. This is important to remove all the zucchini moisture to avoid a too moist cake. Set aside on a bowl.
- Trim the zucchini ends, keep the skin on, and grate finely with a food processor or hand grater.
Zucchini cake batter
- In a large mixing bowl, using an electric beater, beat on medium/high speed: eggs, heavy cream, erythritol, and vanilla. Stop when light, fluffy and whiter in color, about 30-45 seconds beating.
- Stir in coconut flour, almond flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, ginger, nutmeg, and lemon zest.
- Beat again on medium speed to avoid the flours bursting out of the bowl. Stop when the batter is consistent and no lumps appear.
- Using a spatula, stir in grated zucchini and chopped pecan.
- Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes at 350°F (180°C) until the top of the cake is golden and a pick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean or with a very little crumb.
- Cool 10 minutes in the pan, then transfer to a cooling rack for 2 hours until it reaches room temperature.
- When the cake is at room temperature, prepare the cream cheese frosting.
Frosting
- In a large mixing bowl, using an electric beater, beat cream cheese with butter and powdered erythritol until fluffy and creamy.
- Spread the frosting all over the top of the cake and decorate with maple-chopped pecan nuts if desired.
Maple-pecan nuts
- In a small non-stick frying pan add the chopped pecan and roast under low heat for 1 minute, stiring often to prevent them from burning. Then add the sugar-free maple syrup and keep stirring to cover the nuts. Cook up to 2-3 minutes or fragrant and sticky.
- Sprinkle on top of the cake frosting.
- Cut the cake into 16 squares.
Notes
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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Do you think it would work OK to add a cup of drained crushed pineapple to the batter?
Thanks!
Probably yes, make sure it doesn’t add too much moisture to the batter or the cake will be fragile
The best cake I have ever made!
So moist and delicious!
Will definitely make it again.
I made the zucchini cake following the recipe exactly. Both my husband and I thought the cake was dry.What can i do about that?
You may have used too much coconut flour, that’s the only reason it could come up dry
This was so good!! Will definitely make this again!
Can I substitute the erythromycin with powdered stevia. Can not find d the other where I live
The recipe is using erythritol, if you are using powdered stevia you will need only a tiny amount as it’s extremely sweeter than erythritol. Use my keto sweetener converter to help you figure out the right amount to add.
This cake is very good and easy to make. I made it a couple of weeks ago as a test run to see if it would’ve a good cake to Mae for my mom’s birthday. I will definitely be making it. Thank you for sharing your recipe
Can you bake and freeze this unfrosted?
Absolutely
I saw that you said you couldn’t make it vegan, but could I substitute flax meal for the eggs? Or are eggs absolutely necessary?
No that’s what I meant you can’t replace eggs by any egg replacement like flax egg, the batter will never firm up and cook
Can you make it vegan?
NO, sorry you need the eggs here
I just put the Zucchini Cake batter together and it is not smooth at all. Like it definitely needs more moisture. I rechecked all the ingredients. Help!!!
Keto cake batter are never liquid, smooth or thin as regular cake batter. As you see on my video its dense, rough and heavy but still wet not dry as a rock. I am not sure what you mean by not smooth, if you mean overly dry then it means you added too much coconut flour. Coconut flour is 4 times more liquid absorbent than any other flours, a little too much and your batter is dense and dry. That’s why you must scoop, pack and level your flour or weight it for precision. I hope it helps, XOXO Carine
Your zucchini cake looks and sounds delicious. Will be making this tomorrow. Love your recipes. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you ! enjoy the cake, XOXO Carine