King Cake is a Mardi Gras staple and now you can in enjoy it without eating a ton of carbs and sugar!
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I grew up in Kentucky, but I was born in Louisiana and my family has a lot of history there. Every year, on Mardi Gras, I prepare a traditional Cajun dish and a King Cake. My kids look forward to it, and I feel like I am sharing a part of my personal history with them.
They tolerate the supper, but they LOVE the king cake. Not only do they love the cake itself, but what they really look forward to is seeing who will find the “baby”. Check out that smile on my little guy’s face after he found the baby in this year’s cake!
If you have no idea what I’m talking about then here is a VERY brief rundown on the history of King Cake:
- The king cake is a tradition brought to New Orleans from France in 1870.
- It’s an oval shaped cake that tastes like a cross between a cinnamon roll and a french pastry.
- It is decorated in the colors green, gold and purple. Green is meant to symbolize faith, gold is power and purple which represents justice.
- It is supposed to represent the crown of the three wise men who visited Jesus.
- A plastic baby is hidden in the cake to represent the baby Jesus. Whoever finds the baby in their cake, is named “king for the day” and is supposed to host the party the next year.
I live in Indiana now, and pretty much never find King Cakes (or any mention of Mardi Gras) in the store. Which has always left me to make my own.
Traditional king cake can be a royal pain in the you know what (pun totally intended). Thankfully this recipe is SO easy, and my kids all said that they actually preferred it to a traditional king cake.
I drew inspiration from my Cinnamon Swirl Bread recipe, which has quickly become one of my highest rated recipes! I only made a few small adjustments, making it slightly sweeter and adding some frosting of course, to create a delicious King Cake!
To make this cake:
Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees F, and thoroughly greasing a Bundt pan. I recommend using a non-stick spray made especially for baking like THIS ONE when you are using a Bundt pan. It can be really tricky to remove a cake from these types of pans, and this spray helps a ton. Be aware, however, that this spray is NOT gluten free and does contain a small amount of flour, so use something else if that’s a concern to you.
Next, separate the eggs into 2 large bowls. Add the cream of tartar to the egg whites and beat with an electric mixer until soft peaks form, then set them aside.
Add 3 tbsp of melted butter, vanilla, cream cheese, and 2 tbsp of erythritol (I use THIS), to the egg yolks. Mix until well combined then add 1 tsp of cinnamon, baking powder, and almond flour, stirring until everything is mixed well.
Fold the egg whites into the almond flour mixture, and gently mix until you have a uniform batter.
Now, in a small bowl combine the remaining 3 tbsp of melted butter, 1 tsp of cinnamon, and 1/4 cup of erythritol.
Pour 1/2 of the batter into the prepared pan, then evenly top with the cinnamon/butter/erythritol mixture, and then the remaining batter – ensuring that the batter has been spread to the edges of the pan, covering the cinnamon mixture.
Using a butter knife, make swirls in the bread, keeping the knife vertical to prevent the layers from mixing too much. If you are going to be hiding a baby into your cake, now is the time. Simply pick the lucky spot and push the “baby” down into the batter just until its covered.
You have my permission to laugh at our baby. Just like we can never find king cakes, we also don’t have a plethora of plastic babies for sale near us either. We’ve always used this Lego man – and now it’s a tradition 🙂
Bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden on top. Allow it to cool before removing from the pan.
While your cake is baking, you can prepare the icing, by combining the cream cheese, butter, vanilla, erythritol and heavy cream in a bowl using a whisk until smooth and uniform.
To make the colored sugar for decoration, simply place 2 tsp of erythritol into 3 separate bowl and mix each bowl with 2 drops of food coloring. For the purple, use 1 drop of blue and 1 drop of red.
Once you have removed the cake from the pan, top it with frosting and sprinkle with the colored sugar.
Be sure to check out these other great recipes from This Mom’s Menu:
Mardi Gras King Cake | Keto, Gluten Free
Ingredients
For the Cake:
- 5 Large Eggs separated
- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
- 6 tbsp melted butter divided
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 4 oz cream cheese softened
- 1/4 cup +2 tbsp Erythritol divided
- 2 tsp Baking Powder
- 1 cup Almond Flour
- 2 tsp Cinnamon divided
For the Frosting:
- 2 tbsp butter softened
- 1 oz cream cheese softened
- 2-3 tbsp Heavy whipping cream
- 3 tbsp confectioners erythritol (if you don’t have this, simply pulse granular erythritol in a food processor until it resembles powdered sugar)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
For the Colored Sugar:
- 6 tsp granular erythritol divided
- 2 drops yellow food coloring
- 2 drops green food coloring
- 1 drop Red Food Coloring
- 1 drop blue food coloring
Instructions
- Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees F, and thoroughly greasing a Bundt pan.
- Separate the eggs into 2 large bowls. Add the cream of tartar to the egg whites and beat with an electric mixer until soft peaks form, then set them aside.
- Add 3 tbsp of melted butter, vanilla, cream cheese, and 2 tbsp of erythritol , to the egg yolks. Mix until well combined then add 1 tsp of cinnamon, baking powder, and almond flour, stirring until everything is mixed well.
- Fold the egg whites into the almond flour mixture, and gently mix until you have a uniform batter.
- In a small bowl combine the remaining 3 tbsp of melted butter, 1 tsp of cinnamon, and 1/4 cup of erythritol.
- Pour 1/2 of the batter into the prepared pan, then evenly top with the cinnamon/butter/erythritol mixture, and then the remaining batter – ensuring that the batter has been spread to the edges of the pan, covering the cinnamon mixture.
- Using a butter knife, make swirls in the bread, keeping the knife vertical to prevent the layers from mixing too much. If you are going to be hiding a baby into your cake, now is the time. Simply pick the lucky spot and push the “baby” down into the batter just until its covered.
- Bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden on top. Allow it to cool before removing from the pan.
- While your cake is cooling, prepare the icing, by combining the cream cheese, butter, vanilla, erythritol and 2 tbsp heavy cream in a bowl using a whisk until smooth and uniform. If your frosting seems too thick, add an additional tbsp of heavy cream.
- To make the colored sugar for decoration, simply place 2 tsp of erythritol into 3 separate bowl and mix each bowl with 2 drops of food coloring. For the purple, use 1 drop of blue and 1 drop of red.
- Once you have removed the cake from the pan, top it with frosting and sprinkle with the colored sugar.
Notes
I’m in New Orleans and we are SURROUNDED by king cakes right now. Including the James Beard award winning one! We follow Wheat Belly (wheat free/sugar free) and my daughter’s birthday is this weekend. So glad I found your recipe – just hope I can make it as good as yours looks! Now, I just need to find some natural good coloring. Will let you know how it comes out! Thanks for the recipe!
Happy Birthday to your daughter! I am sure that it will look great 🙂 You could try a VERY small amount of turmeric for the gold coloring and maybe spirulina for the green – but I got nothing for the purple!
Hi Sabra. What is the serving size for the nutritional Values you provided?
Taro or beets for purple
Mine was super eggy. 🙁 what did I do wrong?! Help!
It’s hard to say without seeing what you did, but you can sdd a little extra sweetener and/or cinnamon to the batter and see if that helps
Can you use Swerve for the sweetener in this recipe?
Yes, swerve is erythritol, so it works perfectly 🙂
So I’ve read that Erythritol is not as sweet as swerve so you would have to use a bit more. Am I correct to assume that if I use swerve instead, I will need to make some conversions? I’m also guessing that since you said Erythritol instead of swerve, I should follow the measurements as stated in your recipe if I am using Erythritol. Thanks
I usually just substitute erythritol for swerve 1:1. To be more precise, it would be 1 cup plus 1 tbsp of erythritol for every cup of swerve which isn’t really noticeable in most recipes. Most of my recipes use swerve and erythritol interchangeably unless it’s specifically stated in the recipe instructions. Hope that helps!
I made this exactly like the recipe but added about an ounce of extra cream cheese because I love a thick frosting! Turned out wonderful. Thank you for the recipe
I made this recipe today, don’t find it has much taste. I used swerve and monk fruit for sugars.
I made this and it’s not traditional king cake but for someone doing keto in New Orleans during carnival season it’s an amazing substitute! I added a keto friendly cream cheese filling (doing a praline filling next!) and added the food coloring to the frosting instead of adding the extra erythritol on top. I’d leave pics here if I could. Looks and tastes sooooo good!!! Thanks for the recipe!
Will you share your cream cheese filling recipe, please??
Would you mind sharing your cream cheese filling recipe. Thank you!!!
Oh one more thing: What is the serving size for the nutritional values you provided?
Thanks for the awesome review, Rae! I’m so happy to hear that it is getting you through carnival 🙂 The nutrition info I have listed is for 1 serving which is 1/12th of the cake. Hope that helps!
Yaaaaayyyyy!!!! Keto King Cake!!!! I love you lego man! LOL
*your
I’m in Baton Rouge and I modified this, adding blueberries and subbing monk fruit for erythritol. I left off the faux sugar topping and put cinnamon in melted butter on top at the end. It’s delicious. THANK YOU.
Thank you so much for this recipe! I am gluten intolerant, and my father is diabetic. The number of gluten-free options has multiplied, but to find something that is both gluten-free and sugar-free — well, it’s almost impossible! And dad always gets excluded because he can’t eat the sugar. This recipe solves that problem. It is delicious, moist and sweet but not too sweet. I substituted xylitol, because I could not find erythritol at the store. But it came out beautifully. Cannot thank you enough!
Do you know how much sugar I would use? I’m celiac, so I need a gluten free recipe, but I use good old fashioned sugar since I can’t do artificial sweeteners. Thanks!
Hi Maggie! You can sub the erythritol equally for regular sugar, just be sure to use powdered sugar for the frosting 🙂 Hope you enjoy!