Low-Sugar Almond Flour Cake with Mascarpone Berry Cream

My sister wanted a cute, keto-friendly cake for her birthday, so here we are, with an almond cake that’s light on sugar. Since almond flour bakes up pretty dense on its own, I made a mascarpone and fruit cream to fill it, and then topped the whole thing with fruit, a whole mountain of it.

And in case you didn’t notice, the fruit on top spells out an S, for Sara. When I finished, I gave myself a little pat on the back. It came out better than I expected, though I do have a few notes. I made the cake exactly the way she wanted it, so it turned out fluffy but not very sweet overall. If, like me, you prefer a more balanced cake, I’d double the sugar in both the cake and the mascarpone cream, since as written on the recipe they’re on the not very sweet side of cakes, I would say double up if you want a bit sweeter.

The idea was that the fruit would carry most of the sweetness, but even with raspberries and blueberries from the Algarve and Portuguese strawberries, none of it was quite as sweet as I’d hoped. So i would say, maybe brushing the fruit at the end with a little berry or strawberry jam might give it that perfect touch of sweetness. For the filling, I only used strawberries since I had the most of those and they were the sweetest, but it didn’t make the filling much sweeter, and texture-wise, looking back, I think it would have been better to puree the strawberries into a compote and fold that into the cream instead of leaving them chopped, though at the time I wanted to keep the cream white. I also used a bit of sweeteness, since otherwise the cake would have been not sweet at all.

Also I’m not a huge fan of sweeteners in general, but I used Erythritol, which is one of the few that’s actually suited for baking and holds onto its sweetness, since a lot of sweeteners lose it when heated. If you want to keep the cake even more keto-friendly, swap the remaining sugar for more sweetener. Now let’s get to the recipe.

Low-Sugar Almond Flour Cake with Mascarpone Berry Cream

Servings: 12
Time: 2hr
Difficulty: Hard
Rating: ★★★★★
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Yeah i think this cake turned out pretty fancy, delicious and less caloric, it just shows that sometimes you have to make concessions for the ones you love hehehehe.

Ingredients

Greek Yogurt – 300g (Room temperature)
Almond Flour – 350g
Eggs – 6 Large (Room temperature)
Butter – 75g (Melted)
Baking Powder – 2 teaspoons
Vanilla – 2 teaspoons (Extract)
Sugar – 40g
Sweetener – 40g (Erythritol)
Salt – A pinch
Mascarpone Cheese – 250g (Cold)
Vanilla – 1 teaspoon (Extract)
Sugar – 60g
Sweetener – 20g (Erythritol)
Strawberries – To taste (I used +/- 300g)
Blueberries – To taste (I used +/- 100g)
Raspberries – To taste (I used +/- 150g)

Directions

Start by preheating the oven to 180ºC (355ºF), lining a round cake pan with parchment paper, and greasing it with butter.
If you are using whole almonds, toast them while the oven heats up, in my case, I used almond flour, so I spread it onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and placed it in the oven for about 2 minutes—not to toast it, but simply to dry it out (since finely ground almond flour can go from dry to burnt in seconds). Remove it from the oven but keep the oven running.

Whisk the butter with the sugar and sweetener, then add the eggs.
Add the Greek yogurt and vanilla extract, and whisk a little longer.

Finally, add the almond flour, baking powder, and a pinch of salt, whisk until a smooth, liquid like batter forms, then pour it into the pan.
Bake for about 35 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let it rest for about 15 minutes.

Then remove the cake from the pan, mark the halfway point, and slice it horizontally into two layers, set the cake aside.

Combine the mascarpone cheese, a teaspoon of vanilla, 60g of sugar, and 20g of sweetener, whisk all well for about 3 minutes until you have a very smooth cream (taste and adjust to your liking, especially the sweetness).
Wash all the fruit and pat it dry with paper towels.

Chop the strawberries and fold them into half of the cream mixture, reserve the remaining cream to cover the cake.

Once the cake has cooled, spread the cream filling generously over the bottom layer and place the other cake half on top. Cover the top of the cake with the remaining cream and then decorate with the remaining fruit, feel free to pile it up to create a design to your liking and that’s it, ready to eat. Bon appétit!

Notes & Tips: You can, of course, swap the mascarpone cream for whipped cream, and feel free to use other fruits or jams, it’s really up to your own taste.

Room temperature eggs and yogurt matter more than you’d think here. Cold ingredients make the almond flour batter seize up and won’t whisk into that smooth, pourable consistency the recipe is going for.

Almond flour scorches fast under a broiler or a hot oven, so keep an eye on it during that quick 2-minute drying step, a minute too long and it can turn bitter.

Let the cake cool completely, not just “warm to the touch”, before you try to fill or frost it, or the mascarpone cream will melt and slide right off.

If you go the pureed strawberry route mentioned above instead of chopped pieces, drain off any excess juice first so the filling doesn’t turn the cake soggy.

Erythritol can crystallize and turn grainy once refrigerated, so if you’re making this a day ahead, let the slices sit at room temperature for 10 to 15 minutes before serving for the best texture.

Because this cake is fairly low in sugar, the fruit on top really is doing most of the flavor work, so use the ripest, sweetest berries you can find, or a light brush of warmed jam, as suggested, to bring it all together.

This cake is dense and moist by nature (almond flour behaves very differently than wheat flour), so don’t expect the same light, airy crumb as a classic sponge cake, that’s the tradeoff for going lower-carb.

If you think this cake wont be eaten in like 1 or 2 hours of making, then wash all the berries in a 1 part vinegar (like wine or cider), to 3 parts water, then pat them dry, they wont have the vinegar flavour, but they will last longer like that…

This recipe for Low-Sugar Almond Flour Cake with Mascarpone Berry Cream was originally created on BakeAfter.com. Esta receita de Bolo de Amêndoa com Frutos Silvestres foi publicada em português no Iguaria.com.