Light and Fluffy Sugar Free Vanilla Cake that Tastes Like the Real Deal
Sugar Free Vanilla Cake – sugar free vanilla cake layers with sugar free Swiss meringue buttercream.
Why Sugar Free?
The new year is off to a good start around here and I’m excited to re-share with you a recipe that has been frequently requested over the years – a sugar free cake!
To be honest, I’ve pushed this request to the back burner for a while because I didn’t want to come across as if I was making a “diet friendly” cake. I whole-heartedly believe in balance and moderation, and that cake, in it’s full fat, full sugar, full carb form, should be part of that balance.
However, I realize there are many cake lovers reading this who want to have cake in its truest form, but can’t due to health reasons. So, today, this cake is for you!
Sugar Replacements for Baking
As I started out on this cake, I knew from previous experiments with sugar replacements that I wasn’t a fan of Splenda or Stevia. I find they leave an after taste and are definitely noticeable in the recipe.
Just like when I made my Dairy Free and Egg Free Vanilla Cake, I wanted to make sure this cake taste as close to the real deal as possible. I just don’t think flavor and texture should ever be compromised, even in a healthier version.
So, with Splenda and Stevia already a no for me, I grabbed coconut sugar (which isn’t sugar free but is lower on the glycemic index) and monk fruit.
What is Monk Fruit?
Monk fruit is a small round fruit in the gourd family. It is considered a healing herb in Eastern medicine and has been used since its discovery to treat all kinds of ailments. Unlike other fruits, monk fruit’s sweetness comes from antioxidants called mogrosides. Monk fruit extract is all-natural, so there are not the same drawbacks of other artificial sweeteners.
Monk fruit extract is rated a zero on the glycemic index and has zero calories and zero carbs, so it won’t spike blood sugar. Diabetics can incorporate it into their diet more easily than sugar.
Recipe Testing
Round 1
In my first attempt, I thought about just doing a low-sugar cake and used a combination of coconut sugar and monk fruit. The result was a slightly golden brown colored cake that had a bit of a brown sugar flavor to it. I didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t the classic vanilla cake flavor I was going for. I do think coconut sugar would make a great substitute in any of my cakes that call for brown sugar, like my Biscoff Cake.
Round 2 and 3
For my second round, I used all monk fruit. Unfortunately, in this round, the cake sunk a bit. So, in round three, I increased the amount of cake flour by ¼ cup to help stabilize the cake more. It baked beautifully!
You’ll find that the “crumb” of this cake is quite fine, but isn’t not super airy. It’s a really nice, tender, flavorful cake.
How to Make a Sugar Free Cake
Ingredients You’ll Need
- Lakanto sugar free monk fruit sweetener and powdered sugar version – this brand is specifically important because there are fewer additives compared to other monk fruit sweeteners.
- Unsalted butter
- Cake flour
- Eggs
- Vanilla extract
- Baking powder
- Salt
- Buttermilk
- Sour cream
- Grapeseed oil
To make this Sugar Free Vanilla Cake, you’ll start by beating the butter, monk fruit, and oil together on medium-high speed until it becomes light and fluffy. You’ll then add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition and then adding vanilla.
You’ll then turn the mixer to low speed and alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk, followed by folding in the sour cream.
How to Make Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Swiss Meringue Buttercream is a buttercream made by heating egg whites and sugar together over a double boiler, whipping them until medium-stiff peaks form, and then adding butter and flavoring.
While SMB is a bit more involved than my usual American Buttercream, and can sometimes be a little tricky, once you master the steps to a Swiss Meringue Buttercream, you’ll love it. It’s a lot lighter in texture and flavor than an American Buttercream, which is why I don’t often use it. My family and I love the richness of an American Buttercream.
And before we get into some of the key points for making Swiss Meringue Buttercream, I have to introduce you to Tessa Huff of Style Sweet. She is a dear friend and taught me everything I know about SMB!
Tips for Making Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- Make sure your mixing bowl is completely clean and dry before making this buttercream.
- Egg whites should be completely free of any yolk.
- Whisk the sugar and egg whites together before heating over the double boiler.
- Use a candy thermometer to check the temperature of the egg and sugar mixture. It’s ready when the thermometer reaches 160 – 170 degrees F.
- Use the whisk attachment to beat the egg whites and sugar mixture.
- Switch to the paddle attachment when you add the butter and flavoring.
- You’ll know the meringue is ready for butter when the outside of the mixing bowl is no longer warm to the touch. Use your inner wrist to check.
- Butter should be room temperature when you add it. If it’s not, and it’s too cold, the meringue will start to curdle.
- If the buttercream looks soupy, refrigerate it for about 10 to 15 minutes and then mix again.
Cake Making Tips
Don’t forget to follow my go-to tips for getting your cakes to rise and bake well:
- Preheat your oven for 30 minutes prior to baking.
- Beat the butter and sugar for a few minutes on medium-high speed, until light and fluffy.
- Use good quality pans like Fat Daddio.
- Spray your pans with nonstick spray and line with parchment paper.
- Don’t overmix your cake batter once you add the dry ingredients.
- Use room temperature wet ingredients.
- Use fresh baking powder.
- Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs on it.
Sugar Free Vanilla Cake
Ingredients
FOR THE CAKE
- 1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups (350 g) Lakanto monkfruit sweetener Use THIS brand
- 1/3 cup (72.6 g) grapeseed oil
- 3 large whole eggs at room temperature
- 3 large egg whites at room temperature
- 3 1/4 cups (373 g) cake flour
- 3 teaspoons (12 g) baking powder
- 1 teaspoon (4 g) salt
- 1 tablespoon (12 g) vanilla extract
- 1 cup (240 g) buttermilk at room temperature
- 1/4 cup (60 g) sour cream at room temperature
FOR THE BUTTERCREAM
- 1/2 cup (115 g) egg whites
- 1 1/3 cups (280 g) Lakanto monkfuit powdered sugar or, you can use a blender or food processor to blend the monkfruit granules to create a monkfruit powdered sugar.
- 2 cups (452 g) unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon (12 g) vanilla extract
- *This buttercream recipe makes enough to fill and cover your cake. If you want to add additional piping, you’ll want to make an extra ½ batch.
FOR THE DRIP
- 1 cup (150 g) white chocolate chips I prefer Guittard White Cookie Drops (Orson Gygi(
- ¼ cup (57.75 g) heavy whipping cream
Instructions
FOR THE CAKE
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Prepare two 8-inch or three 6-inch round cake pans with non-stick spray, parchment paper on the bottom of the pan, and another coat of spray. Set aside.
- In a medium size bowl, whisk together the cake flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, oil, and monkfruit on high until fluffy and smooth, about 5 minutes.
- Add the eggs and the egg whites, one at a time and beating well between each addition, to the bowl and beat on medium until well incorporated. It may look curdled, don't stress.
- Turn the mixer on low and add ⅓ of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until fully incorporated. Then add half of the buttermilk and blend well, followed by another ⅓ of the flour mixture, the second half of the buttermilk and lastly, add the remaining flour mixture and mix until incorporated.
- Add the vanilla extract and beat on low until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix on low for another 30 seconds. Fold in the sour cream.
- Evenly distribute the cake batter among the two 8-inch or three 6-inch pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until toothpick comes out with just a few moist crumbs on it.
- Remove cakes from the oven and let cool in pans for 10 minutes before inverting onto cooling racks.
- When cakes are completely cooled, I like to wrap each cake layer individually with plastic wrap and stick it in the refrigerator or freezer until I’m ready to frost. The cake will be easier to work with if it’s cooled a bit. If I’m making the cake a day or two before I actually need to frost it, I put it in the freezer to ensure freshness. If I’m frosting same-day, I’ll just put it in the refrigerator to chill until needed.
FOR THE BUTTERCREAM:
- In the bowl of your electric mixer, or any heat proof bowl, combine the egg whites and monkfruit. Whisk until combined.
- Heat about 1 to 2 inches of water in a medium pot over medium heat. Place the metal mixing bowl, or other heat proof bowl, over the pot to create a double boiler. Stir continuously, until the mixture because smooth, light in color, frothy and reaches 160 – 170 degrees F on a candy thermometer.
- Once the mixture has reached the desired consistency, use a whisk attachment to beat the mixture until you reach medium-stiff peaks, about 10 minutes. It takes a bit of time, so be patient. You'll know it's ready for the next step when you touch the outside of the bowl with your inner wrist and it's room temperature. If it's still warm, keep beating until there's no heat coming off the bowl.
- Once you've reached medium-stiff peaks, change to the paddle attachment and then gradually add the butter in small squares, followed by the vanilla. Continue to beat for about 3 to 5 minutes until smooth and silky.
ASSEMBLY
- Place the first cake layer, top side up. Add about 1 cup of frosting. Spread over the cake layer as evenly as possible. Make sure to get eye level with the cake to ensure the frosting is spread evenly over the cake.
- Place second cake layer on top and apply a thin coat of frosting around the entire cake to lock in the crumbs. Freeze for about 10 minutes.
- After the crumb coat is set, continue frosting and decorating the cake.
Thank you! I am one of those who prefer regular cake, but can’t eat the sugar! Thank you!
I made this cake using the measurements and it turned out great!! But first I had tried the weights and it was a failure. The liquids are actually milliliters and not grams. It took me staring at the recipe for longer than I want to admit to figure this out ha!
This looks amazing! And I’m so excited that it is sugar free! If anyone could make a great tasting sugar-free cake it would be you Courtney! I’m wondering if it is possible to substitute the cake flour for almond or coconut flour?
Yes you can!
Thanks for posting this! Can’t wait to make this for my Mom. Now that you have this tackled, can you please make a Keto Cake that is Sugar Free, Gluten Free? 😁
You can totally sub your favorite GF flour in!
Hi! I was just wondering, can the cake flour be substituted with sifted almond flour?
Sure!
Things were going great, but when I took the cakes out of the oven, they fell. What might I have done to make that happen?
Did you take them out before they were done?
Can you use stevia instead of monk fruit?
Sure!
Hi! If we can substitute coconut flour for the cake flour, would it be a 1:1 ratio and would we need to change anything else in the recipe? Also if we wanted to make a dozen cupcakes, would we simply half the recipes for the cake and buttercream? Would the bake time and temperature be any different? Thanks!
1:1 is right. And yes half the recipe! Temp should be 325.
Thank You so so so much for this recipe! My birthday is coming up and I needed something that I could make and it wouldn’t make me feel bad or sick. Do you think there’s a way I could make this into a strawberry cake? Also how long does this cake keep? Could I make it the night before?
Yes just reduce the amount of sugar by how much sugar free jello you use!
Can I do the buttercream without the egg whites? And would adding sugar free strawberry jello be ok to add?
You have to use the egg whites. And you can try with the jello!
First of thank you for making this recipe. My sons a T1D and we’re always trying to find ways to reduce his sugar intake instead of completely removing certain foods from his diet. So this is perfect! How can I make this a chocolate cake instead of vanilla? He loves chocolate 😄
You could use one of my chocolate cakes and sub with monk fruit just like this,.
I’m interested in trying this recipe out today but have everything except grape seed oil-are there any other alternatives you can recommend?
You can use canola.
Hi I’m confused about the chocolate drip in the recipe but see it nowhere in the instructions. And is the drip sugar free?
This cake does not have a drip.
Hi! Would I be able to use carton egg whites for the buttercream and skip the heating?
You can use the carton egg whites, but still need to follow the process for everything else to make this buttercream.
Hi Courtney! I made the cake yesterday and the cake is delicious. I started to make the buttercream but it has a bit of a grainy texture. I tried to microwave a small portion and then put it back in and whipped it again. It tasted a little better but I still taste a little bit of the grittiness. Can you help with this?
Yes, so the grittiness is from the sugar. If you make it again, just use your blender or food processor to pulse the sugar a few times to make it even finer.
It was good but super dense. I tested it at 40 minutes and the tooth pick was still covered in dough. Three minutes later, there were no crumbs to speak of. Took it out of the oven, it fell. Obviously this is user error. What happened?
Oh no! So sorry to hear that. Have you checked the internal temperature of your oven lately? I wonder if it’s off just a bit? If it fell after it came out of the oven, I don’t think it was quite done yet. As for the density, did you use all room temperature ingredients and beat the eggs and sugar sub for a few minutes to get light and fluffy?
I deeply appreciate your dedication to testing and getting it just right. Love all of your work and OF COURSE, your cakes!!! For medical reasons, I am super excited about trying this sugar free version. I had just about given up on my inner cake lover. I would love to get all the ingredients right on my first try. Just to make sure, you were using the Lakanto POWDERED Sweetener, not the baking Sweetener or the Classic. Thanks so much Courtney! Let Them Eat Cake !
How long in advance should I set the butter out? If it is too soft, will it melt my buttercream?
about 30 mins for buttercream
I want to try this cake. I’m new in sugar free. I’ve always been kind of leary about doing Swiss Buttercream Icing. I live near Houston Texas and the humidity is always 60% and most times in summer around 75%. That’s not good with meringues.
Is there a sugar free regular buttercream you could suggest?
Thanks
I would just try using a sub like truvia in my regular buttercream.