Orange-Cardamom Tea Cakes

While looking for keto friendly tea service food recipes I stumbled upon this one and thought the flavor combination sounded good so I decided to try it.

Notes:

• I used butter to grease the muffin tin instead of spray oil because I didn't have spray, and it worked pretty well. Some of them had some trouble releasing from the tin but none got significantly ruined. You can run a plastic knife around the edge as they're cooling to help them come out more easily. I would not use paper liners because I think they'd just stick to the paper.
• I ended up with 11 cakes using a muffin tin. The recipe does not give a yield; it only said she used a mini bundt pan with space for 12 cakes, and I think with holes in the middle like a mini bundt cake you probably would get 12 cakes.
• I was a bit worried at the small amounts of fat and moisture in the recipe and the batter was indeed pretty thick, but it still resembled thicker muffin batter and they turned out fine.
• I used Truvia erythritol/stevia granules and it turned out well. Not too sweet tasting, and no excessive browning.
• I used unsweetened, unflavored almond milk. 
• My cakes took exactly 20 minutes to bake.
• I made a glaze out of a small amount of powdered sugar substitute, fresh squeezed orange juice, and a sprinkle of cardamom but I don't think I'd do it again as it was too sweet. I think a cream cheese based one would be really nice, or the coconut cream based one they suggest.

Verdict: Overall they turned out better than expected, and I would make them again. I might add some more cardamom in a future batch or consider grinding it fresh for a more intense flavor. I also think a lemon-poppyseed variation would be really good. My partner tried them and liked them, and  thinks other people would not know it's gluten free/keto unless you were to tell them.

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RECIPE: Low-Carb Orange Cardmom Tea Cakes (Annissa Slusher, Simply So Healthy)

Weight equivalents:

• 2 cups almond flour = 200 g
• 1/2 cup sweetener = 105 g
• 2 tbsp coconut oil = 28 g 

Spritz Cookies

My partner recently mentioned he missed having spritz cookies this past holiday season (we did not encounter any) so I decided to make him some for Valentine's Day, using the cookie press my friend's mother gifted me a long time ago. I have made spritz cookies before and posted about them here, but I wanted to try a new recipe this time. I know I can count on a recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction to turn out like it looks in her photos.

Notes:

• I chilled my pans from 5-10 minutes in the refrigerator before extruding the cookies onto them and it worked very nicely to get them to stick to the cookie sheet and come off the press.
• I tried brushing water on to get the colored sugar to stick but didn't have a lot of luck with it so I just sprinkled it directly onto the cookie. A little uneven and messy but still works. 
• I use my cookie press just infrequently enough that I forget its little quirks every time. Writing down notes here so I remember for next time.
• Maybe there's a better way to fill it but you can kinda make logs of dough just smaller than the tube and try to drop them in there.
• Change the cookie thickness dial depending on what shape you're making!
• Heart: THIN (if you do THICK they will look more like the opening in the plate hahahaha)
• Flower: THICK (if you try to go thinner they will stick to the gun instead of the pan)

Verdict: These were really tasty and turned out just like the recipe promised. I would happily make them again.

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RECIPE: Spritz Cookies (Sally McKenney, Sally's Baking Addiction)

Peanut Butter Cake

My partner is a peanut butter fiend and requested a peanut butter cake for his birthday. I chose this one primarily because it had a frosting rather than an icing, it looked fairly simple, and it was different from other ones I'd made him in the past.

Notes:

• I halved the recipe and baked it in two nonstick loaf pans greased with butter to make a small rectangular layer cake, and baked them for about 25 minutes.
• I added vanilla extract to both the cake and the frosting because I love the combination of vanilla and peanut butter and I thought it would be weird without it.
• I used heavy cream instead of milk in the frosting, and I needed probably 3-4 times as much as it called for to get the right consistency.
• I decorated it with chopped mini peanut butter cups on the top. I feel like it would also be pretty with chocolate shavings. My partner bought Reese's Pieces for decoration too, but I didn't use them because I think their texture would be too hard for my liking unless they were chopped kind of small.

Verdict: I only had a small taste of it and thought it turned out well enough, though it was a little oily (especially the frosting) but lots of peanut butter desserts are and I'm not sure how much you can get away from that and still have a strong peanut butter taste. The frosting texture was a little strange and I might add butter or use a different frosting in the future, maybe the other one on this blog because I have loved it every time I've had it. But most importantly, my partner loved it so I would absolutely make it for him again.

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RECIPE: Peanut Butter Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting (Mary Beth Manville, The Southern Plate) 

No Bake Chocolate Coconut Fudge Bars

I wanted something new but simple to make for a birthday treat and decided to go with these. They carried me through the immediate aftermath of losing my dearly beloved cat on July 31, which on one hand is a painful memory to associate with anything but on the other hand, it was something tasty for me to eat when I felt too sad to do much of anything and I was glad to have them then.

Notes:

• I think I used allulose as the sweetener the first time, and erythritol the second time. Both tasted fine to me, though there is a little bit of graininess until they are fully chilled. This doesn't make them particularly sweet so if you want them to taste more like they would with regular sugar I'd also add some stevia or stevia blend sweetener. (I used some packets of Truvia because I have a LOT of them at home lol.)
• I mixed them by hand and pressed it into the pan with the bottom of a drinking glass.
• I omitted the almond butter. The recipe says you can add extra chocolate chips, coconut oil, or butter instead of the almond butter. I went with about 3 tbsp melted unsalted butter.
• For the chocolate, I used Lily's semi-sweet style chocolate chips and I really liked the flavor. The filling with the butter reminded me of a grocery store chocolate doughnut icing, in a good way.

Verdict: I like them and would make them again!

Update 8/18/25: I made a version with matcha-white chocolate filling (I had extra Lily's white chocolate chips after making matcha chocolate covered strawberries with my annual fresh strawberry picking haul) and almond extract instead of vanilla, and I enjoyed them a lot. I used the same ratio of matcha in the white chocolate here as for the strawberry coating. For a full batch of these bars that would be 1 tbsp matcha (for 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips). The unsalted butter in the filling instead of almond butter really worked great here too.

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RECIPE: No Bake Chocolate Coconut Fudge Bars (Katie Higgins, Chocolate Covered Katie) 

Chocolate Chip Cookie Cheesecake Bars

These sounded tasty and I was looking for a new sweet treat to try.

Notes:

• I used regular size sugar free chocolate chips because I didn't want to go looking for mini ones.

Verdict: They were less sweet tasting than I was hoping for, but I did like them generally and would make them again. My sugar eating husband liked them too.

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RECIPE: Keto Chocolate Chip Cookie Cheesecake Bars (Carolyn Ketchum, All Day I Dream About Food)

 

Lemon Bundt Cake

I was missing cake and decided to try this.

Notes: 

• I used Swerve granulated sugar substitute and I think it made the cake brown a lot more than it should have. I would recommend NOT using that in this cake (honestly it seems to ruin everything I put it in so I'm not going to buy it again).
• Because I did not have coconut butter I made a lemon glaze instead using a "powdered sugar" substitute (Swerve Powdered, which again turned out poorly probably because of the extra ingredients in it). I ended up adding cream cheese to it and making a thicker kind of frosting.
• I greased the bundt pan really well and it still stuck in one place so my cake kind of fell apart when I took it out of the pan.

Verdict: I wasn't happy with this. It turned out totally different from the picture, a lot more browned to the point of being kind of unappetizing. It was also not very sweet. It might have been my fault because I'm fairly new to low carb baking. If I make this again, I will use the suggested brand of sweetener or use more than it says to use.

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RECIPE: Keto Lemon Pound Cake (Katrin Nurnberger, Sugar Free Londoner) 

Tiramisu Cake

We visited a gluten free bakery and cafe on vacation in Florida that advertised keto friendly baked goods. When we arrived there was a long line to order, and then when it was our turn we were informed they were not actually able to make any of the hot food we wanted (disappointing). They also didn't have any keto friendly sweets in the bakery cases as far as I could tell while we waited about 15 minutes in line to be served. We asked anyway and the cashier looked confused, but then someone working there said the tiramisu cake was keto friendly so we said we'd get one. I had only seen gluten free ones specifically labeled as containing regular sugar in the case, and I'm pretty sure she just gave us one of those that I'd seen. This was all immensely frustrating but there was a big line behind me and I didn't want to make a stink so we paid $35 for our tiny fucking 4" cake and brought it back to the condo. I ended up eating it anyway and even if it had sugar in it (which I'm pretty sure it did because it felt a LOT more filling than keto baked goods), it was quite delicious and didn't really throw me off ketosis, so no harm done I suppose. But I'm not going back there.

Anyway, I was hungry for tiramisu cake after getting home and decided to try to make my own that I knew would be actually keto friendly.

Notes:

• Another NO for Swerve products. The powdered sugar substitute weighed down the frosting on the outside and made it taste grainy. I attempted it again with 100% erythritol as the sweetener with better results but still a little grainy. I would like to try it with the erythritol-monkfruit powdered sugar substitute next.
• I sprinkled cocoa powder in between the layers before putting the second one on and that was nice. 
• I tried dipping the cake layers in cooled brewed coffee before assembling and frosting for some extra coffee flavor (like you do with the ladyfingers in regular tiramisu), and it did NOT work. Didn't soak in at all and made a big mess and was risky because the cake is already a little crumbly. Not worth it.
• I made a 6-inch round cake the first time with 2 6-inch springform pans, and the second time because I wanted something less fussy to line and clean, I baked the layers in two rectangular metal loaf pans. Both turned out nice.
• I want to try putting chocolate shavings on top sometime instead of cocoa powder.

Verdict: I have tried it twice now and like it, but will need to keep working at it to make it exactly what I want it to be. I also think a matcha variation would be delicious, with prepared matcha instead of coffee and matcha powder instead of cocoa powder.

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RECIPE: Keto Tiramisu Cake (The Hungry Elephant)