St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake gets a keto makeover! This easy cake recipe is rich and incredibly buttery, but still low carb enough to fit into your healthy keto diet. Sugar free and grain free.
I feel like I have been waiting forever to make a good keto gooey butter cake recipe. I’ve seen so many glorious conventional gooey butter cakes, which really are more like bars than cake, and I kept eyeing them, wondering if I should take a stab at making a healthier, low carb version.
What was stopping me, you ask? Simple. The lack of good low carb boxed vanilla cake mix. The original St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake takes boxed cake mix and when I re-make a recipe, I like to pay homage as much as I can to the original recipe.
But now, with the advent of not one but two really good keto cake mixes on the market, I decided it was time to give it a go. Both Good Dee’s and Swerve make really good vanilla cake mixes that are perfect for a low carb version of gooey butter cake.
What is Gooey Butter Cake?
You have to admit, it’s such a great name, it makes you want to run to your kitchen and make it straight away, doesn’t it? But what exactly IS gooey butter cake? Well I’ve been doing my research on that!
- It originated in St. Louis, Missouri, and like any traditional recipe, it seems to have many iterations. But generally it’s a flat, dense cake topped with a gooey sweet filling of cream cheese and butter.
- The cake portion is usually made with boxed cake mix, but you add a lot more butter, fewer eggs, and no additional liquids, so it doesn’t rise much but stays dense and buttery.
- The filling is made by beating cream cheese, butter, eggs, and powdered sugar (or sweetener) together and pouring it over top. Then it’s baked just enough so that the topping stays ooey and gooey.
- You then sprinkle it with a liberal amount of powdered sweetener/sugar.
- It’s also often baked in 9×13 pans and cut into squares, so you may see it referred to as gooey butter bars.
Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?
How to Make Keto Gooey Butter Cake
I tried several different versions of this cake so I could give you some options.
The first time I made it, I used the Swerve Vanilla Cake mix for the crust, and simply followed the rest of the recipe I found on the Tidy Mom blog, swapping powdered Swerve for the sugar. Cheryl is actually from St. Louis and I figured she knew what she was talking about!
I took that version to the Oregon Coast when we went away with friends and it was a huge hit.
But knowing that not everyone wants to use, or can afford, the keto cake mixes, I decided to also make it with one of my own basic keto vanilla cake recipes. I did cut the amounts back by one third so it wasn’t too much cake and not enough filling.
I also tried adding some butter to the filling on the second go, to make it more gooey. I’d seen several variations with the added butter and given how much I love butter, I figured it couldn’t be a bad thing.
That version got taken to CrossFit, where it was also a huge hit. But they are hungry people, those crazy CrossFitters.
As I said, you have options here. You could make it with boxed cake mix or with my vanilla cake. But I highly recommend the added butter in the filling. Because low carb sweeteners aren’t like sugar, the filling is more firm when it’s just cream cheese and eggs. Sugar keeps things softer, so the additional butter really helps this keto version.
If you truly want a gooey butter cake, make sure to under-bake it. Don’t wait for that filling to firm up, take it out of the oven while the center is still quite jiggly.
That’s really it! It’s a remarkably easy cake, whether you use boxed cake mix or not. And with these low carb ingredients, how can you go wrong?
Want more gooey dessert recipes? Check out my Keto Desserts Page!
Keto Gooey Butter Cake
Ingredients
Cake:
- 2 cups almond flour
- ½ cup Swerve Sweetener
- 2 tablespoon unflavored whey protein powder
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup butter melted
- 1 large egg
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
Filling:
- 8 ounces cream cheese softened
- ½ cup butter softened
- ¾ cup powdered Swerve
- 2 large eggs
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- Powdered Swerve for dusting
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325F and lightly grease a 9x13 baking pan.
- In a large bowl, combine the almond flour, sweetener, protein powder, baking powder, and salt. Add the butter, egg, and vanilla extract and stir to combine well. Press into the bottom and partway up the sides of the prepared baking pan.
- In another large bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth. Beat in the sweetener until well combined, then beat in the eggs and vanilla until smooth.
- Pour the filling over the crust. Bake 35 to 45 minutes, until the filling is mostly set, but the center still jiggles, and the edges are just golden brown.
- Remove and let cool, then dust with powdered Swerve and cut into bars.
Shawna says
I love this idea.. but sadly I’m highly reactive to almond flour do you have something like this made with coconut flour? I love so many of your recipes 🙂
Carolyn says
You can try using the cake part of my Chantilly cake… but you won’t need as much of it. I recommend cutting it down to two thirds of the recipe: https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/keto-chantilly-cake/
Dawna says
I am from St Louis metro. ooey gooey butter cake is yummy. I am thinking you version is delicious too. I can’t wait to try it!1
Sue says
As a St Louis resident gooey butter cake is craved. Someone made a post of a ice cream that matches this cake. Would you be able to keto this?
It’s made by “the Ice Cream Factory” brand.
Laura says
Hi There,
Could this cake be baked and then frozen?
Thank you!
Laura
Carolyn says
Yes, it does nicely… I did it with the pumpkin version and it came out just as well as it went in! Wrap it up tightly.
Laura says
Thank you!!
patricia a boutilier says
When I went to make this all I had was a GoodDee’s devils food cake mix. I used that for the crust. Didn’t clean the bowl after and made the filling in same bowl so there was a bit of chocolate cake mix in there—the filling was cocoa colored. I sprinkled in some instant expresso powder. It was yummy!
Carolyn says
I like that idea!
Veronica says
Such a delicious treat! Another fantastic recipe that will be saved. The consistency was as promised (gooey goodness), flavor was very real to a non-keto dessert. Downsides will be how to keep myself from eating too much of this!
A couple of follow up questions:
1) I ended up using a combo of allulose and lankato monk fruit in both the cake and the filling as I didn’t have enough of the different sweeteners on hand. While the family loved it, it did taste pretty sweet even without the powdered sweetener. I’ve studied your guide to sweeteners (https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/best-keto-sweeteners/), but haven’t figured out what the culprit could be. Any thoughts or recommendations for the next go around? It’s the filling that was definitely sweeter than expected. Usually powdered sugar tastes sweeter in general, so was surprised when the alternatives turned out sweeter. Will try with the powdered sugar too but wanted to see if you had any thoughts.
2) does this freeze well?
Thanks!!!
Carolyn says
The culprit is very possibly the Lakanto. Their powdered sweetener used to be 2x as sweet, so I wonder if you had some of that? I can never guarantee the outcome when people use different sweeteners! Should freeze just fine.
Veronica says
Thanks! I was using granular Lakanto vs the powerdered Lakanto. When I try it again, I will aim for using exactly what you put in the recipe. I find it hard to keep so many different kinds of sweeteners on hand and have enough when the craving hits! When we froze it, I think it helped to take the sweetness down a bit due to the icy nature. Still delish and barely slows down my consumptions of these bars!
Paula says
This is wonderful, love gooey butter cake. Do you have a chocolate version gooey butter cake?
Carolyn says
Not at this time but sounds like a good idea!
Jeannine Moore says
I made this but it seem like more crust then filling I had to use flaxmeal instead of Almond cause hubs cant have almonds even though he has yet to try it UGH I made PB balls and he opted for those instead I made this for him cause he loves Gooey Butter cake. I like it as did my mom but does not taste like Gooey butter cake. Tatse like cheese cake.
Carolyn says
Flax seed meal is NOT a good replacement for almond flour…
Melanie P Mattox says
Hi – this looks wonderful. Will it keep well in the fridge for a couple of days IF not gobbled up the first time around?
Carolyn says
Absolutely! Good for about 5 days.
Theresa says
Really good recipe, I’ve made it several times, my 86 year old Kentucky Grandma even liked it. I did switch out the Sweve for Brown Sugar Swerve on the cake layer the second time I made it, and I liked it even better. Thanks for a wonderful bite!
Carolyn says
Thanks!
Barbara says
I have a Mrs Keto vanilla cake mix (I’m in UK). It says add 3 eggs. 80g (2/3 cup) butter and 1/4 cup of water to the mix. Would I be right in just adding one egg, more butter and leave out the water? Thank you!
Carolyn says
Well it’s very hard for me to say without trying it myself but I think that sounds about right.
Veronica says
I’ve made Paula Deen’s gooey butter cakes (pumpkin & banana), so I’m thankful to have found this! I do have the swerve cake mix, but it’s less than the typical cake box mix used in Paula Deen’s. Should I double on the Swerve box?
Carolyn says
It should work out with just the one… that’s how I made it the first time. Less crust, more gooey filling!