Some desserts are absolutely iconic and I can say with confidence that this Keto Kentucky Butter Cake is one of them. This is the original, my friends! I first published this epic sugar-free treat back in 2017 and it became an instant success. So much so that look-alike recipes started popping up all over the internet. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as they say!
But you’ve managed to find your way to the OG keto butter cake, and I am glad you’re here. If you love rich, buttery desserts, you’ll be happy to know I have plenty of them. You might also enjoy my recipes for Keto Gooey Butter Cake and Keto Butter Cookies.
My devoted fans know that I am a stickler for both taste and texture. So I took my time developing this recipe, and figuring out how to achieve the classic Southern butter cake experience with low carb ingredients.
This cake has the perfect density, but still comes out with an incredibly tender crumb. And the buttery syrup soaks in while the cake still warm, to make it ultra-moist. It’s really is a stunner of a dessert, so it’s little wonder that there are so many copycat recipes. But now you know where it all started!
Why Readers Adore This Recipe
- Rich, buttery flavor: Readers often tell me that when they take this to a gathering, it’s the first dessert to disappear!
- Unbelievably moist: The cake is moist enough as it is but the buttery glaze adds even more moisture.
- Elegant presentation: Bundt cakes always look so elegant, all they need is a sprinkle of powdered sweetener and a few berries.
- Crowd-pleaser: Many folks report that everyone loves this cake, from kids to grandparents.
- Make ahead recipe: You can make it several days in advance and refrigerate until ready to serve.
- Keto-friendly deliciousness: No grains, gluten, or sugar makes this an epic low carb treat.
What readers are saying
“I think this cake might be my favorite, and I’ve made many of your desserts. This moist, buttery cake does not even need the glaze! It’s that good. Comes together quickly, bakes to perfection, and yields lots of servings. It’s 10 ⭐️” — Lynn
Ingredient Notes
- Keto flours: This recipe uses both almond flour and coconut flour. The coconut flour helps with structure and offsetting all the delicious butter.
- Protein powder: As always, protein powder helps the cake rise better and have more structure. I recommend whey or egg white protein. Plant-based may also work but don’t use collagen protein.
- Butter: Butter cake needs to be made with copious amounts of butter. Please don’t ask me how to make this recipe lower fat. It’s a butter cake, after all!
- Sweetener: This bakes for quite a bit of time, so I recommend using mostly erythritol based sweeteners in the cake. See the Tips for Success for more details.
- Whipping cream: I use a mix of whipping cream and water as the liquid in this recipe.
- Kitchen staples: Eggs, vanilla extract, baking powder, and salt.
How to Make Keto Kentucky Butter Cake
- Combine the dry ingredients: Whisk the almond flour, coconut flour, whey protein, baking powder, and salt.
- Mix the wet ingredients: In a large bowl, beat the butter and the sweetener until light and creamy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract.
- Combine together: Add the almond flour mixture and beat until well combined. Transfer the batter to a large, well-greased bundt pan and bake until golden brown.
- Prepare the glaze: Melt the butter and sweetener together, whisking until combined. Whisk in the water and vanilla extract.
- Pour over the cake: While the cake is still warm, poke holes all over it with a skewer. Pour the glaze over and let cool completely in the pan.
- Garnish: Gently loosen the sides with a knife then flip out onto a serving platter. Dust with powdered sweetener.
Tips for Success
Take the time to grease the pan properly, as directed in the recipe. Bundt pans are notoriously tricky and sticky, and it can be tough to get cakes out in one piece. Particularly cakes as tender as this one! Make sure not to use pans with lots of nooks and crannies – a regular fluted pan works best.
Also let the cake cool completely but don’t let it stay in the pan much longer! I’ve noticed that keto baked goods begin to stick again if they stay in the pan much longer than that.
Use room temperature ingredients. I cannot state this strongly enough! Cold eggs will cause the nicely creamed butter to clump up again.
I don’t recommend trying to replace the coconut flour with more almond flour. Almond flour contains more moisture and it will make this cake far too soft.
Protein powder is an important part of this cake’s success so please don’t ask me if you can substitute anything.
Sweetener Options
I highly recommend using an erythritol based sweetener in the cake itself. Allulose browns more quickly and the part of the cake against the pan will darken considerably – and with a bundt cake, the majority of the cake is against the pan. It may also taste a little burnt.
That said, you are free to experiment with your preferred sweeteners. I just can’t guarantee the results.
You can use allulose-based sweeteners in the glaze, as that won’t cause any issues.
More Keto Bundt Cakes To Love
Keto Kentucky Butter Cake
Equipment
Ingredients
Cake
- 2 1/2 cups (260 g) almond flour
- 1/4 cup (30 g) coconut flour
- 1/4 cup (27 g) unflavoured whey protein powder
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup (227 g) butter, softened
- 1 cup (182 g) granular sweetener , erythritol recommended
- 5 large eggs, room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup (119 g) whipping cream
- 1/2 cup (118.29 g) water
Butter Glaze
- 5 tbsp butter
- 1/3 cup (60.67 g) granular sweetener, erythritol or allulose
- 2 tbsp water
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Garnish
- 1 to 2 tbsp powdered sweetener
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat oven to 325ºF. Grease a bundt cake pan VERY well and then dust with a few tbsp of almond flour. Pro Tip: double-grease your pan to help prevent sticking. Use a solid fat first, like butter or coconut oil, and then a spray like coconut or avocado.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the almond flour, coconut flour, whey protein, baking powder, and salt.
- In a large bowl, beat the butter and the sweetener together until light and creamy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract.
- Beat in the almond flour mixture and then beat in the whipping cream and water until well combined.
- Transfer the batter to the prepared baking pan and smooth the top. Bake 50 to 60 minutes, until golden brown and the top of the cake is firm to the touch.
Butter Glaze
- In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and sweetener together. Whisk until well combined. Whisk in the water and vanilla extract.
- While the cake is still warm and in the pan, poke holes all over with a skewer. Pour the glaze over and let cool completely in the pan.
- Gently loosen the sides with a knife or thin rubber spatula, then flip out onto a serving platter. Dust with powdered sweetener.
- Serve with lightly sweetened whipped cream and fresh berries.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Frequently Asked Questions
This is a very butter-forward recipe, so dairy-free substitutions will change the flavor and texture. Some readers have had success using high-fat plant-based butter, but the result won’t be quite as rich or classic as the original.
Because this is a large cake, I recommend using a 9-inch spring form pan or two 8-inch round cake pans. Baking time will vary, so start checking early and take it out when the top is just firm to the touch.
This keto Kentucky butter cake recipe has 5.5g of carbs and 2.5g of fiber per serving. That comes to 3g net carbs per slice.
Nutritional Disclaimer
Please note that I am not a medical or nutritional professional. I am simply recounting and sharing my own experiences on this blog. Nothing I express here should be taken as medical advice and you should consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. I provide nutritional information for my recipes simply as a courtesy to my readers. It is calculated using MacGourmet software and I remove erythritol from the final carb count and net carb count, as it does not affect my own blood glucose levels. I do my best to be as accurate as possible but you should independently calculate nutritional information on your own before relying on them. I expressly disclaim any and all liability of any kind with respect to any act or omission wholly or in part in reliance on anything contained in this website.
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Phenomenal cake! Just delicious! Thank You!
I will be making A LOT of these cakes as is and also with added ingredients to the glaze. I am going to add a lot of cinnamon to the butter glaze for cinnamon cake and whiskey or rum added to the glaze will make a great holiday cake! (Or whatever cake)
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
(You hit this one ‘out of the park!’
I have to say this cake was AMAZING. It tasted like a buttery doughnut to me. So rich and delicious! Thanks for creating this!
Caroline, I want to make this cake. I do not have the whey protein but is there a suitable substitute? Also, I have pyure sugar. Can this be substituted for the Swerve? If so, how much should I use? I am very new at low carb cooking/baking but want to be successful so that our family can stick with this way of eating. Any help you can give is HUGELY appreciated!
Hi Karen…for this cake, I very much advise getting the whey protein, because it helps it rise and hold its shape. Pyure should be fine in the cake…i think it’s 2x as sweet as Swerve so use half.
This cake is divine! I made this last week along with a pecan pie to do a taste test. The winner would be brought to Thanksgiving dinner with my extended family. My husband and I have cleaned up this cake, slice by agonizingly small slice over the course of the week. I made a second Kentucky Butter Cake to bring to Thanksgiving and it was devoured. Two other people brought desserts – regular sugar and wheat flour desserts. I didn’t tell anyone this cake was gluten-free, sugar-free, keto. I just set it on the table next to the other desserts. Well, this one disappeared, while the other desserts still had half left. People went back for seconds, thirds, and even fourths. I know this because the people who weren’t able to get seconds tattled on the ones who got fourths! LOL
I made this for our Thanksgiving dinner and my husband has informed me to never make it again… Because he can’t stay away from it! My goodness, this cake is amazing!
Could I use rum instead of water?
Sure!
Ladies, you are in for a surprise with this recipe. It’s not good! It’s KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF, CURL YOUR TOES UP GOOD!!! I was born, raised and currently live in Kentucky and I can honestly say I’ve never ate a low carb cake recipe as good as this one!!! Outstanding!!!!
This was so delicious! I used almond extract which gave it a lot of flavor. And a dollop of whipped cream is ‘the bomb’! Since I’m at high altitude (in China) and my oven isn’t so great, next time I will add more liquid and butter. I served it to my non-Keto friends who loved it!
Since making it I’m a convert to your sweets recipes and just bought your Everyday Keto Cookbook!
I have not liked low carb/keto desserts or artificial sweeteners. But this was really good and I will make this again. Thank you!!
Are net carbs ok?? I think it’s 3.04g not 2.04g!!
I was wondering this as well?
I wish I had read more of the comments before I made this cake. It was a disaster as far as getting it out of the Bundt pan. I followed the recipe exactly, being very careful to grease and flour the pan. It never did come out and finally dug it out with a serving spoon. Every plate was a different kind of mess. Good news is that it tasted fabulous!! Go figure.
Needs a lot of grease.
Just made the cake and it tastes delicious!next time I’ll use less sweetener, I had used a monk fruit/erythritol blend. But I am wondering if the cake is supposed to be a little ‘mushy’ for a lack of a better word. I cooked it until golden brown and toothpick came out dry, except for an oily look on it. I’ve never had butter cake before so have no idea what consistency it should resemble. Thank you!
No, it definitely should not be mushy.
First, delicious. But holy moly it’s sweet. Second I buttered the crap out of my Bundt and it still wouldn’t come out, became a crumbly mess. Not sure if it’s because of my pan or maybe I didn’t cook it long enough. I think it’s the pan though. This has happened once before and maybe that’s because I found it in a thrift store. They gave up on it too ??. If I made it again I would use a regular pan and cut the sweetness alot. But it’s very good in little bites!
What a delicious cake. I made it in a 9×13 pan and turned it into a rum cake with pecans on top. I subbed 1/4 cup of rum for 1/4 cup of water in the cake and 2 T rum in the glaze. Definitely a keeper for our house. Thanks so much for the recipe.
Can you make a chocolate cake version of this?
If I wanted to make this into a rum cake, any idea which ingredients to replace with rum? I know baking has to be very precise but I am clueless when it comes to this stuff.
Some of the water at the end (maybe 1/4 cup) and then I would be tempted to add a few tbsp of rum to the glaze.