Low Carb King Cake Pound Cake Bread

Before scrolling down to the recipe, be sure to read my easy tips for making your recipes low carb, keto friendly, and delicious.

This simple low carb pound cake recipe features pantry friendly ingredients. Serve this pound cake bread for breakfast, lunch, supper, and dessert! Perfect with a cup of hot coffee.

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Pound cake, the amazingly dense dessert, is popular anytime of the year, perfect with any meal, celebration, or simply served with a cup of hot coffee. It’s delicious and devilishly high in carbs and sugar.

Question Time: How do you like your pound cake? 

This dense, rich dessert is commonly served with coffee and typically made for an occasion with friends. I grew up with pound cake served on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon with a cup of hotCommunity Coffee (remember, I started drinking coffee in my diapers).

Since pound cake is so dense, I would often walk into the kitchen and ‘grab’ with my ‘fingers’ a piece of this bundt cake, not needing a fork or plate, just a napkin. 

And while I love pound cake in a bundt pan, I wanted to update the traditional ‘bundt’ cake version into something new, fun, and low carb.

It was time I take the pound cake to the drawing board. I faced some challenges – replacing the flour, sugar, and loads of eggs (so the eggs are not that bad, but I knew I could go a little lighter on the calories) and how to bake (cupcake, loaf pan, etc). The bread version is my ultimate choice while giving it a Mardi Gras makeover. Please note, this dish does take a long time to cook, so give yourself a good 2 hours from start to finish.

(For other Louisiana classics I took to the drawing board, check out my Low Carb Peanut Butter King Cake Cheesecake Bars)

While it’s not Paula Deen’s original pound cake recipe, I developed an amazing low carb pound cake recipe celebrating the Mardi Gras season. Let me know if you and your family tried this recipe!

Ingredients in Low Carb King Cake Pound Cake Bread:

• Greek yogurt
• Butter
• Swerve granular sugar
• Eggs
• 100% egg white substitute or 2 egg whites
• Vanilla
• Almond flour
• Salt
• Xanthum gum
• Sour cream
• Light cream cheese
• Cinnamon
• Fairlife milk
• Swerve confectioners sugar

Where to Shop for Low Carb Ingredients

Many of you know my love of Drug Emporium stores. Not only does Drug Emporium have amazing prices (often the cheapest in town), I work with this amazing company in putting on Low Carb Food Demonstrations and product selection for shelves. All my items in the recipes are from Drug Emporium. No Drug Emporium in your town? No worries, I have the links for where to purchase online!

Low Carb Ingredient Substitutions in our Low Carb King Cake Pound Cake Bread

Greek Yogurt

Greek yogurt offers us an amazing source of protein. Keto friends, be sure to use a full fat Greek yogurt. I used a 2% version.

Flour

With any dessert, flour is the basic ingredient. It serves several purposes, mainly as a thickening agent and to hold the wet ingredients together.  Flour in the low carb and low net carb world makes us cringe since whole wheat flour has 21 grams of carbs and 3 grams of fiber per 1/4 cup serving. Enter almond flour! Almond flour is made of almonds that have been ground to a fine texture. It is a gluten-free, keto-friendly, grain-free food and contains approximately 5-6 grams of carbs per 1/4 cup. Don’t panic over the carbs, almond flour has approximately 3 grams of fiber giving this flour a net carb of 3 per serving. And please don’t panic over the fat. Remember nuts are the fats we want to include in our diet. I do enjoy cooking with almond flour, but I personally feel due to it’s heavier texture, almond flour works best in bars, brownies, and muffins as well as in my batters for my vegetables and meats in the air-fryer. The type of almond flour does matter. Make sure to use super-fine almond flour from balanced almonds. We used Bob’s Mill Almond Flour in this recipe. You can purchase online here! 

Sugar

Sugar is used to add sweetness to our dessert recipes. While a spoonful of sugar may help the medicine go down, at 4 grams of carbs per teaspoon, a low carb sugar alternative is needed. One of my favorite sugar replacer is Swerve. Swerve is a keto friendly sugar replacer and taste amazing. Kick those old blue and pink packets good-bye and pick up this New Orleans product. In this recipe we used 2 types of Swerve, granular and confectioners.

Swerve granular is an amazing keto sugar replacer in baked goods, while our Swerve confectioners sugar replaces powdered sugar in items such as dips and frostings.

Can’t find Swerve at your store? It’s always available online!

Cream Cheese

While my fabulous keto friends will keep the full-fat versions of cream cheese (please do if you are following keto), I used a light cream cheese to keep the calories down in this dish (yes, I look at calories). No fear, light cream cheese does not have any added sugar. Light cream cheese is a healthy alternative to cream cheese with 35 calories tablespoon compared to 51 calories in 1 tablespoon of cream cheese.

Eggs and 100% Egg Whites

We love eggs in the Skinny Louisiana kitchen. Eggs offer us an amazing source of protein. No replacement needed in our eggs. To keep calories down, we used 1/3 cup of egg white substitute. Make sure you are using 100% egg white substitute and kept friends, use 4 eggs in this recipe!

Butter

Yes, the recipe does call for butter. Under any circumstances, we do not use margarine in the Skinny Louisiana kitchen. We are quite mindful of the amount of butter we use, never using more than we need.

Milk

A low carb milk alternative is Fairlife milk. Fairlife milk not only taste amazing, but is ultra-filtrated thus taking the carb count from twelve to six and is lactose free. The ultra filtration process increase the protein in the product. Taste? Amazing! Fairlife milk is a staple in the Skinny Louisiana house and works amazing in all our low carb recipes. You can find Fairlife milk in the milk section of most supermarkets.

Sour Cream

We used a full fat version of our sour cream due to the small amount needed.

Xanthum Gum (optional)

Xanthum gum is very popular in gluten free cooking because of its ability to thicken dishes and mimic the gluten. It is formed with the fermentation of glucose and a bacteria found in cabbage. It is traditionally added to various desserts using almond and coconut flour to prevent the product from falling apart. Xanthum gum has a high fiber count, leading to a ZERO net carb product! We used Bob’s Red Mill Xanthum Gum.

How to Make Low Carb King Cake Pound Cake Bread

Start With the Oven

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 

Get Equipment Ready

Line 9 x 5 loaf pan with aluminum foil.

Let’s Get to Mixing

In a medium mixing bowl, combine Greek yogurt and Swerve. Beat with a hand mixer for 3 minutes. Add 2 eggs and egg white substitute OR 2 egg whites. Beat for 2 minutes. Add vanilla. Beat for 2 minutes. 

Let’s Start the Batter

Slowly add in almond flour and salt. Beat for 2 minutes. Add in sour cream. Beat for 2 minutes. Place aside.

Let’s Make a Filling

In a small mixing bowl, combine light cream cheese, Swerve granular sugar, and cinnamon. Beat for 1 minute.

Let’s Get to Baking

Spoon half of the batter into loaf pan. Layer with cream cheese mixture. Top with remaining batter. Using a butter knife, swirl batter and cream cheese. Do not touch the side of the pan.

Bake for 60 minutes. Cover loosely with aluminum foil. Return to oven and bake for an additional 20-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. 

Let’s Make it Gorgeous

Let cool for 20-30 minutes. While pound cake is cooling, in a small bowl combine Fairlife and Swerve confectioners sugar. Pour mixture over pound cake. Top with green, gold, and purple Swerve colored sugars.

Low Carb King Cake Pound Cake Bread

1 6 oz container of plain Greek yogurt

1 tbsp butter

1 1/3 cup Swerve granular sugar

2 eggs

1/3 cup 100% egg white substitutes OR 2 egg whites

2 tsp vanilla

1 3/4 cup almond flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp Xanthum gum (optional)

1/2 cup sour cream

4 ounces of light cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup Swerve granular sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup 2% Fairlife milk

3/4 cup Swerve confectioners sugar

Green, gold, and purple Swerve colored granular sugar

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9 x 5 loaf pan with non stick aluminum foil.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine Greek yogurt and Swerve. Beat with a hand mixer for 3 minutes. 

Add 2 eggs and egg white substitute OR 2 egg whites. Beat for 2 minutes.

Add vanilla. Beat for 2 minutes. 

Slowly add in almond flour, salt, and xanthum gum. Beat for 2 minutes.

Add in sour cream. Beat for 2 minutes. Place aside.

In a small mixing bowl, combine light cream cheese, Swerve granular sugar, and cinnamon. Beat for 1 minute.

Spoon half of the batter into loaf pan. Layer with cream cheese mixture. Top with remaining batter.

Using a butter knife, swirl batter and cream cheese. Do not touch the side of the pan.

Bake for 60 minutes.

Cover loosely with aluminum foil. Return to oven and bake for an additional 20-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. 

Let cool for 20-30 minutes.

While pound cake is cooling, in a small bowl combine Fairlife and Swerve confectioners sugar. Pour mixture over pound cake.

Top with green, gold, and purple Swerve colored sugars. (recipe here)

Yield: 16 slices

Nutrition Facts per Serving:

Calories: 130, Total fat: 10g, Saturated fat: 2.5g, Cholesterol: 35mg, Sodium: 90mg, Total Carbs: 4, Dietary fiber: 1g, Net carbs: 3g, Protein: 6g.

NET CARBS: 3g.

Carb count exclude sugar alcohols. New carb count is determined with the equation total carbohydrate – total fiber – sugar alcohol.

This recipe was developed and copyright by culinary dietitian Shelly Marie Redmond. She is the author of Skinny Louisiana…in the Kitchen and upcoming Skinny Louisiana…in the Slow Cooker. She practices out of Eberhart Physical Therapy which she co-owns with her husband Greg. In her spare time, she watches Snapped and Investigation Discovery (let’s be honest!)

You can purchase her book at the following link.

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