Kentucky butter cake is a moist and buttery pound cake with a sweet butter sauce that soaks through the cake. This indulgent keto kentucky butter cake is going to blow your mind! It’s easily one of the best low carb cake recipes I have ever made.
Sometimes, size matters and sometimes, bigger is better. I know many of you are enjoying my mini low carb cakes and keto desserts for two, but that’s not where we are going today, my friends. Oh no, today, we are going big, bold, and beautiful. And we are heading down into the heart of Dixie and taking inspiration from our beloved Southern friends, who do big, bold and beautiful better than the rest of the world. Take, for example, the beloved Kentucky Butter Cake.
I mean, people in the south know how to use butter in a big, BIG way. And anyone who can liberally throw huge amounts of butter in a cake and then drizzle that cake with butter sauce has my respect.
I am pretty certain that I’ve never been to Kentucky. I have a decent sense of US geography but some of those states down in the southeast corner of the country confuse me so I might not even be able to place it on a map. Sorry, Kentuckians, but it’s true and I wager that many of you wouldn’t be able to place the Canadian provinces, so there!
But I have plenty of respect for you because hey, you created bourbon, you’re pretty awesome when it comes to horse races, and you know how to knock it out of the park when you make pound cake.
I confess I’d never heard of Kentucky Butter Cake until I saw this glorious salted caramel version from Wishes and Dishes. Quite literally, I sat there with my jaw hanging open and there is a slight chance that I may have drooled a little. I instantly knew I had to make a low carb Kentucky Butter Cake recipe.
How To Make Kentucky Butter Cake
Creating a low carb recipe for Kentucky Butter Cake needed some careful thought, since low carb ingredients don’t behave the same way as flour and sugar.
Butter: You need ridiculous amounts of it. Well, of course you do, it’s a butter cake after all. You need a full cup of butter for the cake itself and even more butter for the glaze. Please don’t ask me how to make this recipe dairy free. It’s a butter cake.
Almond Flour: This is where the keto version of Kentucky Butter Cake differs from the original. Now this presents a bit of an issue with all that butter, because almond flour already contains much more fat and moisture than wheat flour. Which means it could be too soft and too moist.
Coconut Flour: To offset the moisture content of the almond flour, I also added some coconut flour. It’s incredibly absorbent and helps soak up all the moisture and give the cake some structure.
Protein Powder: Yes, you need it. It doesn’t have to be whey protein, it can also be egg white protein. But you need it. Because gluten is a protein and since this cake is entirely gluten free, adding in a dry protein powder helps the cake rise and hold its shape.
Room Temperature Ingredients: This goes for almost all keto cakes, but it’s really important to have your butter properly softened and your eggs at room temperature. For the butter, you should be able to easily press a finger into it and leave a dent, but not have it squish all over. And if you add cold eggs to that, it’s just going to clump up all over again. So make sure you leave them out for at least 30 minutes before using.
Grease It Good: This cake is so tender, it has a tendency to stick in the pan. Do yourself a favour and grease that pan really well. Not once, but twice. I like to grease once with butter and once with coconut oil spray. Then I like to dust lightly with almond flour. Be sure not to use a pan with deep crevices, where the cake is more likely to stick. And try to use a very good non-stick pan.
The Glaze: Glaze may not be something of a misnomer, since you aren’t glazing the top of the cake. Rather you are poking the cake with holes and allowing this amazing buttery syrup to soak into it. So good! Feel free to make some of the best low carb caramel sauce to drizzle over yours, if you prefer.
Everyone loves my Keto Kentucky Butter Cake
Ever since I first published this recipe, it’s been a beloved favorite among my readers. You don’t have to look much further than the comments to see that.
There are also a lot of copycat recipes out there now. I’ve even had people take this full recipe and pretend that they created it themselves! Yep, one woman on YouTube made a video and took full credit for my recipe. And a lot of other low carb bloggers have now copied it, changing just one or two little things and giving me no credit whatsoever. That’s unfortunately the way things seem to be these days. I might be old school but I believe in giving credit to my inspiration.
So make no mistake, my friends, this is the original low carb Kentucky Butter Cake recipe. And I feel confident that it will stand the test of time!
Check out all my best Keto Desserts here!
Keto Kentucky Butter Cake Recipe
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) Swerve Granular
- 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) Swerve Granular
- 2 tbsp water
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Garnish
- 1 to 2 tbsp Confectioner's Swerve
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325F. 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 cake is firm to the touch. A tester inserted in the center should come out clean.
- 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
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I’ve made this cake three times. This is the best low carb cake recipe I have tried.
Thanks, Pam!
Could u use 1 1/4 cups almond flour, 1/2 cup oat fiber , 1/2 cup whey protein isolate to lower the carb count even more? Would it change the consistency?
Yep, it sure would change the consistency. I wouldn’t recommend it.
Adding right now to my AnyList “Favorites” folder! Wish I had seen this before my birthday. LOL! Loving your cookbook btw! Best Christmas present I had under the tree!
OMG This has become my go to cake for holidays and special occasions. I had to make extras for Christmas since I and my sister are low carb BUT I have a close friend who has wheat issues and another family friend who is a celiac. This cake was perfect for both of them.
My only issue I find is that I have to cook this for almost 2 hours. I have checked my oven and the temp is fine (I always have an oven thermometer in it). I also use a silicone bunt pan and that does help with the sticking.
FYI: Tastes amazing when you use Rum or Bourbon in place of the water in the recipe (for both parts).
I am guessing the silicone pan is part of it? Hard to say but I am glad you love it!
Cake is great, even better the second day!!! Any ideas why mine stuck to the bundt pan? I sprayed generously with cooking spray and then a sprinkled with a bit of almond flour. It really stuck; I had to scoop it out of the pan. Before keto I always sprayed pan and sprinkled with flour or sugar and never had a problem. Unitl I figure it out I may skip the bundt pan and make a loaf. This is not a complaint!! I am a newbie at keto cooking. Going from gourmet cook to ameteur keto cook is stretching me. I don’t have a clue what to do most of the time :))
This is a cake that although amazing can tend to stick for a lot of people. It can depend a lot on your pan and just how non-stick it really is.
I don’t know if this will help you, but I don’t have much luck flouring my pans with almond flour for some reason. I bought a small bag of gluten-free flour (because I’m gluten-free), and I use that to flour pans only (not to bake, since it is high-carb). And instead of spray, I use softened butter rubbed on with a paper towel (getting into the crevices). That method works great for me. It’s more work, but the cake looks lovely!
Best yellow cake I’ve made to date! This is a stunner. I’d like to use it for a layer cake. Would this make 2 or 3 layers if the layers were 8 or 9 inch rounds? Thanks for a gorgeous creation!
I’d go for 3 layers, personally, but you could do either.
I made this yesterday. There were small differences though as I used iLite cook&bake as substitute for swerve (couldn’t find Swerve) and added 2 tbsp of pure maple syrup. Also as my oven seemed to be stuck at a burn to a crisp temperature, I decided to divide the mixture into 2 and baked one half in my rice cooker which has a cake function and the other half in a 5 x 5 inches round pan by steaming it in my wok (with a closed lid). I had never baked/steamed like this before so I was quite anxious if it would turn out right. I also mixed chopped pecans into the mixture that went into the rice cooker and chopped unsweetened chocolate into the mixture that went into the wok. Both cakes came out beautifully although I had to microwave the cake from wok for about 5 mins on high as there were some parts within the cake that seemed a little wet. Ultimately both cakes tasted so good and my husband and kids (who haven’t liked a single low carb/Keto cakes I’ve made so far) had to ask me to remove the cakes from next to them as they were going to finish them in 1 sitting! They managed to finish half of the cakes in 15 mins!! Husband said he couldn’t believe this was a low carb cake and that it was really really good. I’m so happy this turned out so well even without the oven. Will be making more of this cake and can’t wait for my oven to get fixed. Thank you so much for your effort to perfect this cake and for sharing it with us. Such a satisfying feeling baking something that everyone in the family loves eating.
That is some creative baking! Way to go making it work! 🙂
I have a question about the carbs. You came up with 2 net carbs per 1/16th serving. Swerve has 4 net carbs per tsp and the recipe calls for 1 cup of swerve which is the same as 48 tsp. That would make it 192 net carbs for the entire cake and 12 net carbs for 1/16th. I’m wondering if I calculated something wrong. I did not calculate the frosting etc. Just he cake.
Thanks for your help.
What you did was actually count the carbs in Swerve…which, since it doesn’t affect blood sugar at all, shouldn’t be counted. I think that they shouldn’t technically even be called “carbs” since they bypass the blood stream. It’s hard to believe but true, and I know this because I actually test my blood sugar.
So…WOW! This is hands down my favorite low carb cake. I made only one change to the cake and that was to use my favorite sweetener, Trim Healthy Mama Gentle Sweet, because for my tastebuds, it tastes more like real sugar. But… where some special, grown-up magic happened was in making the change to the butter sauce! I doubled the recipe and used heavy cream instead of water, I used the THM Gentle Sweet, AND I thickened about 1/3 cup of brandy with a dash of zanthum gum and added it to the sauce. It turned a lovely golden color and kept a nice, smooth, thicker consistency. I drizzled each cut piece with a generous bit of sauce and served it with whipped cream. It was divine, and people actually came back for seconds! This will be my go to company dessert now!! Carolyn…THAK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!
Sounds fantastic!
Made the cake last night and while it’s delish, I did run into an issue. I verified that I followed the directions exactly as written but needed to bake the cake 80 minutes. When I removed the cake from the pan I noticed that the center of the bundt cake was still a bit undercooked. Perhaps 350°?
No, it should be done at 325F but it sounds like your oven runs on the cool side.
Hi Carolyn!
I am making a chocolate fondue to bring to a New Year’s Eve party. Do you think this cake would hold together when I chunk it up to dip in the chocolate? Or do you think a different pound cake recipe would work better?
If you let this cool properly before cutting, I think it would be fine. But you could also take the batter from my Cranberry Pound Cake and do that one, minus the cranberries and orange.
Hey Carolyn!! Is this cake a high riser or does it rise only a very small amount (as most of these type seem to be denser) I just wanted to know what I should expect in that department. AND…will my batter be thick…med?? This way I know I have it right from the beginning!! Very nice cake!!!
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!