The best low-carb Christmas cake (keto fruit cake) recipe that is quick and easy, using my famous one-bowl method.
This delicious Christmas cake has 7 flavor variations and is sugar-free, and gluten-free, with only 3g net carbs per slice.
PLUS you can download a FREE printable festive meal plan.
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If you want to stick with your low-carb diet or keto diet this holiday season, having a few simple healthy keto Christmas recipes on hand is a must. This low-carb version of the humble Christmas cake gets a makeover by replacing all the added sugar and flour with healthy low-carb and keto ingredients instead. It's the perfect cake for those who hate fruit cake.
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I love traditional fruit cake, with the flavor of citrus peel, dried fruits, and the crunch of almonds and walnuts inside. This easy low-carb Christmas cake tastes just like the real thing, but without the carbs and sugar.
Is Christmas cake healthy?
Traditional Christmas cake can be healthy depending on which ingredients you choose. A traditional Christmas cake has wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking soda, brown sugar, candied peel, dried fruit, and often honey or treacle (a dark sugar syrup).
One small slice of fruit cake will definitely push you over the limit of your daily carb allowance and probably trigger even more sugar cravings.
Nutrition facts: A slice of traditional fruit cake is 69g total carbs, 7g fiber, 62g net carbs. This low-carb keto Christmas cake per slice has 2.6 g net carbs, 6.6 g protein, 20 g fat, and 220 calories.
This low-carb cake, however, is made with butter, almond flour (to replace wheat flour), mixed spice, fresh eggs, and your favorite sugar replacement (to replace added sugar and treacle). There is no dried fruit in the basic recipe but there are 6 flavors and optional extras such as dried cranberries if you want a more authentic taste.
Ingredients you need
All the quantities and instructions for the low-carb Christmas cake, are in the recipe card at the end of this post.
Butter - you may use salted butter or unsalted butter. Please taste the almond flour cake batter before baking and add salt according to your taste. Salt actually brings out the sweet flavors in a recipe.
Sweetener - use your favorite sugar replacement. The most common are granulated sweeteners and sugar alcohols such as erythritol, xylitol, monk fruit, or allulose. For a real authentic taste, use brown sweetener.
Ground cinnamon - may be substituted for another favorite Christmas spice.
Mixed spice - pudding spice or pumpkin spice. If you can't find mixed spice, you can make your own homemade pumpkin pie spice.
Almond essence - or almond extract gives this keto almond cake a real festive taste.
Eggs - medium fresh eggs are best.
Almond meal - almond flour or ground almonds all work beautifully in this keto "fruit" cake.
One-bowl method
This easy healthy recipe is a great recipe for children to start baking in the kitchen. The cake batter is made in one bowl so is perfect to help reduce prep time, washing up, and clean-up time.
You can bake it in a loaf pan, round cake tin, or square cake tin. Grease the sides with melted butter then line with baking paper. This makes it easy to remove and place on a were cooling rack.
STEP 1: In a large mixing bowl, mix the softened butter mixture with sweetener until light and fluffy. Add the festive spices and almond essence. Gently mix in the eggs, one at a time. Don't skip this step, this stage makes the cake light and fluffy.
STEP 2: Add the dry ingredients and mix until well combined.
This is where you can add any extra flavors and optional extras such as walnuts, macadamias, candied peel, mixed peel, or dried fruits.
STEP 3: Pour the low-carb Christmas cake mix into a prepared baking tin that has been lined with baking paper (parchment paper). Bake at 180C/350F.
This festive "fruit cake" cake was baked in our house twice in two days. The first was when I was developing the keto cake recipe and I added the candied peel, the second was when my 9-year-old son needed a cooking project for school.
He made it all by himself, all I had to do was crack the eggs for him. So it truly is a super easy low-carb Christmas cake recipe, tried and tested by my little prodigy.
Christmas cake variations and substitutions
There are SIX options depending on how authentic you would like your Christmas cake to taste and how many carbs you can tolerate.
The basic Christmas cake has the lowest carbs. You can then decide which different variations you wish to add. Each variation will add extra carbs. Which flavors, and how much you add, is completely up to you and your personal preference.
It's also the perfect gluten-free, grain-free, and sugar-free Christmas cake if you have guests and family members who hate traditional fruit cakes.
6 Optional extras: If you choose to add the following, these are the additional nutrition values you must add.
These nutrition values are extra per slice. The cake makes 10 slices.
- ½ cup walnuts - total carbs 0.8g, fibre 0.4g, net carbs 0.4g
- ½ cup macadamias - total carbs 0.8g, fibre 0.5g, net carbs 0.3g
- 1 cup candied peel - total carbs 7g, fibre 0.3g, net carbs 6.7g
- ½ cup orange zest and lemon zest - total carbs 1.8g, fibre 0.8g, net carbs 1g
- 1 cup goji berries - total carbs 11g, fibre 1.6g, net carbs 9.4g
- 1 cup dried cranberries - total carbs 13g, fibre 0.9g, net carbs 12g
Expert recipe tips and FAQ
Always test your cake batter before pouring it into your prepared baking tin and adjust the sweetness. If you are a beginner, you may require double a recipe suggests. If you have been low-carb or keto for some time, you may want to reduce the sweetener by one-third or one-half.
A traditional Christmas cake will always have dried fruit, however, you need to avoid all this dried sugar when on a low-carb diet or keto diet. This low-carb almond flour cake is only 3g net carbs per slice and has no added sugar and is naturally gluten-free.
A regular fruit cake can stay fresh for months because of its high sugar content. A keto Christmas cake made with almond flour needs to be stored in an airtight container and kept in a cool place for up to 4 days.
Yes, your Christmas cake can be frozen for up to 3 months.
If you are on a keto diet you will want to avoid marzipan with added sugar.
1: You can use sugar-free cream cheese frosting and add vanilla extract, rum, brandy, brandy extract, or brandy essence.
2: Decorate the whole cake with slivered almonds and dust with ground nutmeg or mixed spice.
3: Make my 3 ingredients sugar-free keto marzipan (almond paste), roll it out, and cut a circle large enough to cover your cake. Any leftover marzipan you can dip in chocolate, make marzipan candies, or make little snowmen.
If it is still fresh but has become dry, place a slice of cake in the microwave for 10-second increments to warm up and the moisture will come back. Serve with whipped brandy cream or serve sliced with brandy butter.
Ensure you don't add any fruit to your keto "fruit" cake, and instead of candied peel, add fresh lemon zest or orange zest.
These are dried cherries or candied cherries that have been colored with green food coloring.
No, almond flour and coconut flour are not directly interchangeable. These two low-carb flours behave in completely different ways and require different ratios of dry ingredients to wet ingredients and how many eggs are required.
By not adding any baking powder, it makes the cake heavy and dense. It helps to make this low-carb version similar to a heavy fruit cake.
How to have a keto Christmas
If you are wondering how you do Christmas day on your keto diet, I have plenty of easy recipes and tips for you to stay on track this season. In fact, most of these delicious recipes can be enjoyed year round.
Keto Christmas main meal
Generally, areas to avoid in a regular Christmas meal are the high-carb side dishes. So instead of bread stuffing, you can serve pork sausage stuffing, keto cornbread stuffing in your bacon-wrapped turkey.
If you want to learn how to cook a keto turkey, you can print the easy cooking schedule and learn how to wrap your turkey in bacon so it is always tender and moist. Your entire family will love it.
Christmas keto side dishes
There are delicious keto side dishes too. Creamed Brussels sprouts, baked broccoli, and cauliflower, or bacon buttery Brussels sprouts,
Christmas keto desserts
These healthy desserts are always a crowd-pleaser with friends and family at holiday celebrations and parties. Even the most ardent sugar lover will love these sugar-free delicious recipes.
Slow-cooker mulled wine, Instant Pot lime cheesecake, low-carb Christmas fruit pies, and sugar-free spiced almonds as a Christmas party snack or as a wonderful gift for family and friends.
If you love Christmas cookies, you'll love keto snowball cookies and keto sugar-free gingerbread cookies too. There's even a keto fruit cake made with almond flour.
Wishing you all a very happy Thanksgiving, Christmas, and healthy new year.
📖 Recipe
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Low-Carb Christmas Cake Recipe (Keto Fruit Cake)
Recipe Video
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Ingredients
Basic easy low carb Christmas cake
- 110 g (1 stick) butter softened
- 4 tablespoon granulated sweetener of choice or more, to taste
- 2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 teaspoon mixed spice/pumpkin spice
- 1 teaspoon almond essence/extract
- 4 eggs - medium
- 200 g (2 cups) almond meal/flour
Optional
- 100 g (1 cup) walnut halves/pieces (or macadamias) chopped
- 75 g (½ cup) mixed/candied peel
- 75 g (½ cup) dried goji berries
- 75 g (½ cup) dried cranberries
- 50 g (⅓ cup) orange zest and lemon zest
Instructions
- Mix well the softened butter and sweetener until pale and fluffy.
- Add the spices and essence, mix again.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing between each one.
- Add the almond meal/flour and mix until well combined.
- Stir through the nuts and optional extras now.
- Line an 8 inch/20cm round baking tin with baking parchment paper and butter the sides well.
- Spoon into the prepared tin and bake at 180C/350F for 20 minutes, or until cooked (ovens vary).
Notes
- ½ cup walnuts - total carbs 0.8g, fiber 0.4g, net carbs 0.4g
- ½ cup macadamias - total carbs 0.8g, fiber 0.5g, net carbs 0.3g
- 1 cup candied peel - total carbs 7g, fiber 0.3g, net carbs 6.7g
- ½ cup orange zest and lemon zest - total carbs 1.8g, fiber 0.8g, net carbs 1g
- 1 cup goji berries - total carbs 11g, fiber 1.6g, net carbs 9.4g
- 1 cup dried cranberries - total carbs 13g, fiber 0.9g, net carbs 12g
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Approximate nutrition information is provided for convenience and as a courtesy only. For the most accurate nutritional data, use the actual ingredients and brands you used in your preferred nutrition calculator.
Teresa Hoover
My Grandma’s Dark fruit cake had the cherries. I’m thinking of cutting the cherries into tiny pieces to cut down on the carbs. I know that blackberries and blueberries are the lowest for carbs so I might add them in. Also, the Molasses can be changed with Keto Honey/Syrup. I can’t wait to try this!!!
Robyn Shanahan
This is a brilliant recipe. Everyone who tries it loves it.
Libby Jenkinson
Thank you Robyn.
Olivia
2021 I have just found this recipe and love it. Better still everyone that tries it loves it too, even those that are sugar lovers. That’s a win as I am a Health Coach and try to covert as many people as I can to ditch sugar.
Lynn
Been making this for the last 3 years and it doesn’t have to be Christmas to make it. Got 2 in the freezer at the moment ready for Christmas Day. Trouble is it’s so good you have to make 2 at a time
😋😋😋