If you aren’t familiar with mug cakes, they are delicious little no-fuss low-carb (2 net carb per cake) cakes that can be made in tiny batches. I used ramekins here, but you could easily use a coffee mug to cook them in… hence the name :)
As I’ve talked about previously, we don’t use erythritol in our kitchen, so the challenge for us was to come up with a cake that we could sweeten using stevia without having it taste weird. Enter lemon cake! Lemon goes well with both coconut and stevia, allowing us to make this with coconut flour and sweeten it with stevia.
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GAPS Notes
If you need a quick gluten-free dairy-free cake, this is right for you as well! If you’re not watching carbs, a mild raw honey (use 1 tablespoon per packet of stevia called for) works well in this recipe as well. You may need to increase the baking time a touch when using honey.
Heavy whipping cream is not GAPS-friendly since it contains lactose, so use coconut milk instead.
If you’d like to make a small batch of cupcakes, this recipe will fit into 6 cupcake liners. After they have cooled, pop them in the freezer and your GAPS kiddo (or yourself) can bring them along to classroom celebrations and birthday parties without feeling left out.
My daughter’s teacher has already requested I bring half a dozen of these for her to keep in the classroom freezer, which I’m thrilled about!
About the ‘cake’ consistency
Being low-carb, these cakes are not the exact same consistency as wheat cake made with real sugar and flour. But they can really satisfy a cake craving and are delicious on their own. These mug cakes are a little more custardy-soft than traditional cake.
Mimicking treats can be a challenge when you are low-carb or allergy-free baking. Sadly, we cannot make healthy food taste and feel exactly the same as the food that got you sick in the first place, so we make-do with yummy substitutes. But they are just that, substitutes.
Keto Lemon Mug Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 1/4 cup lemon juice juice of about 1 lemon
- 1/4 cup coconut milk OR heavy whipping cream
- 1 lemon zested (this lemon zester makes this so fast and easy!)
- 3 packets stevia
- pinch sea salt
- 1/4 cup coconut flour
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 375* F
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Grease 4 custard cups or ramekins with butter or coconut oil (I use these, they are 5 oz but any cup between 4 and 6 oz should work)
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Combine eggs, lemon juice, coconut milk or heavy cream, lemon zest, stevia, sea salt, and coconut flour and stir well.
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Allow to sit for 5 minutes (this is the trick to getting coconut flour to not be clumpy) and then stir again until completely smooth.
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Add in baking soda, and stir again.
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Evenly pour batter into 4 custard cups and then place in the oven.
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Bake for 20 minutes, or until edges are starting to turn golden brown, 'cake' springs back when you gently press on it, and a knife or toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
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Cool, and then top as desired with stevia-sweetened whipped cream, or whipped coconut cream to make it dairy-free.
Recipe Notes
To make a single serving of this mug cake, use 1 egg, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, the zest of 1/4 a lemon, 2 tablespoons cream, 2 tablespoons coconut flour, 1 packet stevia, a tiny bit of salt, and tiny bit of baking soda (small pinch of each). Place in a mug or a 6-ounce ramekin. Microwave for 1:30 on high, or bake as directed for the full batch. The nutrition values for the individual cake haven't been calculated.
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Yum! Do you use coconut milk from a carton or can? I ask because heavy whipping cream would be thicker than coconut milk from a carton. Perhaps either way works?
Thank you for the recipes and helpful information you freely share!
Good question! I used it from the can, the full fat kind :)
One cake… that sounds delicious. One cake… along with so much food for thought. (I recall the first time I added lemon juice to my yogurt… and the surprise of how sweet it tasted!)
Looks yummy. I use erythritol instead of stevia. What would 3 packets measure?
3 tablespoons :)
Lemon anything is my all time favorite dessert. Could you make the 4 servings but put it in a tart pan?
It’s pretty flexible, I bet you could! If you try it I’d love to see how it turns out :)
Soooo. The recipe for the single serving has the heavy cream going into the mug with all of the other ingredients. However, the instructions above give no indication that the heavy cream is a part of the recipe other than a topping. Should the cream be one of the combined ingredients or a topping only?
Good catch! The coconut milk/cream is mixed in with the lemon and coconut flour batter. I just updated it – thank you!
I use liquid Stevia. Do you know how many drops of liquid Stevia would equal three packets?
It depends on the concentration, if there’s a ‘serving size’ on your bottle, use that for 1 packet :)
Can you use lemon extract instead?
I made this in a loaf. Didn’t have a lemon to get the zest. It I also made a thin lemon glaze to go on it. It was pretty good. I think next time I will use heavy whipping cream instead of coconut milk. It was almost too much coconut taste for me.
The single serving mug cake turned out the consistency of Malt O Meal. I cooked it an additional 1 minute. Let it get cold,and added homemade whipped cream. Salvageable ar best…
Do you know if I used almond flour instead of coconut would I need to do anything differetly? If I remember, you cannot exchange these flours equally….?
Thank you.
You would need to use more almond flour – maybe 4 times the amount? I’m not quite sure.
I can’t eat eggs. What can I use instead?
One place it says 2 carbs in the nutritional guide it says 5. I’m on a strict carb diet so I need to know which one is correct. It looks delicious can’t wait to try it. Thank you
I buy organic heavy whipping cream from Trader Joe’s. Since it is all cream with no milk whatsoever, there is no lactose (milk sugar) in it. I’m lactose intolerant and I can eat this cream all day long without having any problems. So if you want to use dairy cream in this recipe and you cannot because it might contain lactose, look for high quality whipping cream that contains no milk.
Close, and it probably has so little that it doesn’t bother you, but if it had no lactose whatsoever it would be butter :) It still has a little in (which might bother very sensitive people) but not much at all.
If you over whip whipping cream, you get….butter!
Omg, this was Delicious & Moist. I would definitely make again. I used heavy whipping cream and swerve.
Delicious! I made mine using erythritol instead of stevia and it turned out great!
Can these be made a day ahead and stored in fridge. How long can they be stored. Thank you
good morning..I don’t like to receive your mailletters longer .
Can you stop this..
Thanks..
Hi Anna, if you want to stop getting my newsletters, there is a link that says ‘unsubscribe’ at the bottom of each one – if you click that they will stop :)
I use pure stevia powder, not packets that have other fillers. What amount of pure stevia would I use?
Any type of sugar alcohol massively upsets my stomach, so pure stevia is the only low carb sweetener I can use. I prefer NuNaturals brand, if that helps.
Would like to try these yummies in my Instant Pot! Any ideas on amount of time? Use steam setting?? Thanks
That keto lemon mug cake is so Instagrammable and adorable! As you know I made it a short while ago and it was lovely! Thx, Cara for sharing!