My husband made a request… make him a THM Italian Cream Cake. His second favorite cake next to German Chocolate Cake (which I conquered). Challenge excepted! Here is what I came up with and I have one happy husband! Love making him happy!! Happy husband, happy wife, happy life! 😉 What makes this cake even more awesome is that it’s sugar free! No spike of the blood sugar! Now if you haven’t figured it out yet, I am a THMer, short for a Trim Healthy Mama! I used the THM Sweet Blend instead of sugar for both the cake and icing! How great is that!
Let’s get started! Gather your dry ingredients. The nutmeg and cinnamon in this cake make it almost like a spice cake!
Mix your wet ingredients with a blender.
Mix both ingredients together. Blend well.
Pour batter into two greased round cake pans.
Bake and allow to cool completely.
Mix icing together.
Add nuts and unsweet shredded coconut.
Once cooled flip cake carefully onto a plate or dish.
Ice bottom layer of cake.
Carefully place top layer of cake onto iced bottom layer. Ice top layer and sides.
Slice up a big piece and enjoy!! Not only does this taste good but what a pretty cake it is!!
Italian Cream Cake
- Cook Time: 30
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 10 1x
Description
My take on a classic Italian Cream Cake but with out all the sugar! Delicious taste and eye appeal!
Ingredients
Cake
- 2 1/2 cups of almond flour (I used almond meal from Trader Joe’s)
- 6 eggs
- 2 sticks of butter
- 1 cup of 0% Greek yogurt
- 1/2 cup of almond milk
- 1/4 cup and 2 tsp of THM Sweet Blend (if you don’t have this you can use Truvia, or Swerve or Xylitol but you will need more than 1/4 cup. Try 1/2 cup for Truvia and Swerve, maybe a cup or more for Xylitol. I have only tried the THM Sweet Blend with this but I think it will easily adapt.)
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup of chopped walnuts
- 1 cup of shredded unsweetened coconut
Icing
- 2– 8 oz packages of cream cheese
- 1 stick of unsalted butter
- 4 tsp THM Sweet Blend
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1 cup of chopped walnuts
- 1 cup of shredded coconut (unsweetened)
Instructions
Cake
- Mix all dry ingredients (except sweetener) together well.
- In a mixer, blend butter and sweetener well.
- Add yogurt, then eggs, then almond milk.
- Slowly pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients.
- Grease two 9″ round cake pans well.
- Pour batter evenly into both pans.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees. Knife will come out clean.
- Allow to cool completely before flipping onto a cake plate.
Icing
- Mix the cream cheese and butter together.
- Add sweetener, vanilla, salt, nuts, and coconut.
- Mix well.
- Ice bottom later.
- Add top layer.
- Ice top and sides of cake.
- Enjoy!
You’re so dang brilliant! 😀 This is my father-in-law’s absolute favorite cake. Now I can make a treat for him that won’t spike his blood sugar. Thank you!
LOL that’s awesome!!! My hubby was so happy to get his Italian Cream Cake! 🙂
You, Mrs Criddle are a hero!!! This cake is awesome. Making this as soon as I can get my hands on some more almond flour. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
LOL yay!! 🙂
Ive made your german chocolate cake several times and its the best thank you for sharing
How much pure stevia would I use in this recipe?
Hmmm… I would start out with a few teaspoons first. Taste the batter… if you need more add a 1/8 the of a teaspoon until you get it right. You don’t want to make it bitter! I found that also adding salt helps to cut the bitterness. 🙂
Thank you so much for this fabulous recipe. I made it yesterday and it was very, very good. It’s tough to work with these ingredients sometimes, but this cake was exceptional. I did tweak the icing a bit with additional sweetener and a few good glugs of heavy cream at the end to fluff it up.
Yumo! 🙂
Oh that sounds like an awesome tweak!!! So glad you let me know!! I love fluffy frosting!!
Just made this cake and it was sooooo good!! My husband and I both really enjoyed having cake that is on THM plan and tasted delish! Thank you for creating it and pinning it!!
OH awesomeness!! Thanks for letting me know!
Do you have a MIM version of this recipe?
I sure don’t but I think it would be easy to convert into a mim just by replacing the almond flour with coconut flour and adding either a little more coconut oil or even water! 🙂
DO YOU PUT COCOCUT AND NUTS IN THE CAKE BATTER AND THE ICING?
Yes, I do! 🙂 You don’t have to though. 🙂
Cake is great! I didn’t have enough butter for cake so I substituted with coconut oil. The cake was great & THM friendly. Thank you for this great recipe.
awh, yay! Sounds good with coconut oil too! Love that stuff!
Is this an S or an E Trim Healthy Mama dessert? 🙂
This is an S dessert! 🙂
Can u use coconut flour instead of almond flour?
You can but I am not sure of the measurements. Coconut flour requires more liquid so definitely increase the eggs! 🙂 I would love to make a coconut equivalent to this recipe. I will try to work on it!! 🙂
Are ou using regular cream cheese or 1/3 less fat cream cheese? And if I don’t have sweet blend what could I use?
I’ve used both kinds of the cream cheese. I lean towards the less fat since the almond flour is “fattier”. 🙂 You can definitely use Truvia or Xylitol or Erythritol!! 🙂 You will need twice as much for Truvia and probably 3 times as much for xylitol. Hope this helps!!
We aren’t crazy about coconut in my family, if I leave it out of the cake recipe, should I replace it with something else?
I would just add more nuts! 🙂 Or leave it out completely! 🙂
Thank you, thank you, for this recipe! I made it tonight, and I can’t believe how tasty it is. I’m slowly working my way through your dessert recipes, because everyone I’ve tried has been wonderful (and I’ve had a hard time finding baked recipes THM style that we really liked). So, thank you! Can’t wait to try some of your others 🙂
OH YAY!!! Thank you for telling me!!!
Would you be able to break this down to amount of ingredients for a cake in a mug? 🙂
Great idea, I will try to figure that out, haha! 🙂
Hi Sarah,
The cake looks very tempting and I am planning to make it soon. I just wanted to know if I could use soft brown sugar instead of the artificial sweetener. If yes, how much?
After I try it, I shall let you know how it turned out 😀
Yes, you could but it would not be THM friendly them (if you follow Trim Healthy Mama). I would probably triple the amount! 🙂
Quick question: Did you soften the butter for the cake before you blended in the sweetener? If so, did it get chunky when you added the greek yogurt? I’m terrified to combine my dry ingredients with the stuff in my mixer bowl. Can’t stand the thought of wasting the almond flour. TIA!
Yes, I did soften the butter first. I think it did get chunky with the greek yogurt! I should work fine! 🙂
I’m really wanting to try this but have an almond allergy. I saw your comment about figuring out amounts for subbing coconut flour. I’m wondering if you’ve had a chance to play with that yet. I’m not a great baker and really don’t want to waste the expensive ingredients. Thank you for this and all your wonderful recipes!
Ugh, I haven’t… I am starting to use more and more coconut flour due to a possible nut allergy so as soon as I adapt to a coconut flour cake recipe for this I will post it!!! 🙂
I would be interested in a coconut-flour version of this recipe as well. 🙂
I soooo need to work on that!! 🙂
How long would I bake in 9×13 pan
I think I would try 25-30 minutes then go 5 minutes at a time longer if needed! 🙂
Excited to try this!
This is baking now!!! hope it turns out for me!!!
Oh gosh, how you liked it!! 🙂
Did you grind the sweet blend for the frosting to be like confectioners? I have used it without grinding before and it is gritty.
Baking cake right now!
I don’t think I did… but that’s a good idea to keep the grit out. Because of the nuts and coconut flakes I am ok with the grit. 🙂
Do you think it would taste OK with pecans instead of walnuts?
Pecans are perfect too! A milder flavor which I LOVE!
In the frosting or calls for Cinnamon and nutmeg, but it doesn’t tell when to add it. 🙂 just want in to know of the really is supposed to be in the frosting. Thanks!
Just add while you mix the frosting!! 🙂
I was wondering if you have tried making this with the THM baking blend? Would I sub 2 1/2 cups of baking blend for the almond meal or less? Or could I do half baking blend and half almond meal? So far I don’t like the texture of all almond meal in a cake.
I haven’t yet but I would sub 2 cups instead of the full 2.5 cups. I think if you did half almond and a little less than half baking blend it would work better!
So this is what I am looking for too. I am thinking 1 cup almond flour and 1 cup baking blend or is that not enough of the baking blend? Thank you for your work here!
Sarah, you mentioned adding shredded carrot on the THM page. How do you think it would be with shredded zucchini? My mom used to make a yummy zucchini spice cake with coconut.
Yes!!! That sounds amazing and would work!!
Tx Valerie for asking about the baking blend…might have to try!
I made this, and it turned out beautiful. Although I did not have the unsalted butter, I should have omitted the salt, so other than my mistake…cake could have been a little sweeter, but works great.
Awesomeness! 🙂
This is in my oven now for my Thanksgiving dinner with my family tomorrow. Thank you for sharing this recipe. Now I can bring my favorite dessert to the whole family and not feel terrible for eating it!
Yay!!! Hope you like it!!!
In the comments there is a reference made to adding carrots or zucchini. How much would you add of either to make a variation of this cake? Would you need to also increase any of the other ingredients if you added these moist vegetables?
This cake looks great!
I’d add about 1/4 cup of shredded carrots or about 1 cup of shredded zucchini. 🙂
Did you ever figure this out using coconut flour?
No I haven’t yet… ;(
When you say Sweet Blend, do you mean Gentle Sweet or Super Sweet?
Super Sweet Blend… this was back when it was called Sweet Blend. But I want to make this using Gentle Sweet and I’ll not the changes when I do!
Have you ever made these as cupcakes? Curious if it is too dense and would stick to the paper baking cups….
Hmmm. I have not tried that. I might try it today to see if that would work!!
Have you made this with the THM baking blend? If so how did it turn out? Thanks!
I haven’t… I need to try it with that!
I made this for my grown daughter for her birthday. It’s definitely a keeper! I wouldn’t change a thing. Thank you for all your wonderful recipes. You make us look like fantastic cooks, lol. ❤️
AWESOME!! 🙂
This recipe is great….if you like salt. The frosting was inedible due to the saltiness and pretty much tasted like straight cream cheese with nuts. The cake was dry and also salty. I followed this recipe exactly and we ended up throwing it out in the yard. Maybe the deer will like it as a replacement for the salt block we usually put out for them.
hmmm… I’m so sorry you had troubles. I’ve had really good reviews on this cake… I am not sure what could have gone wrong. Well, I hope the deer at least enjoyed it. 😉
Did you use UNsalted butter? Also did your walnuts have salt on them? If any of these were the case I can see where the icing might have been to salty….. 1/2 tsp in either the frosting or cake should not have made it overly salty, but if there was added salt from the butter or nuts that might be the reason.
Yes, I just use unsalted butter. No my walnuts do not have salt. Hmmm… I might need to check that to make sure its not too much.
I made them into cupcakes, my husband loved them that way even without any frosting. I used paper cupcake liners and all was great!
YAY!! I am really happy to hear you love it!!!
Do I need to refrigerate this cake?
Yes!
Oh, my goodness! I gained so much weight, years ago, eating “real” Italian Cream Cake. It is one of my biggest weaknesses. I am positively GIDDY to have found this recipe!! I cannot thank you enough!
Spray your cake pans first then put a coffee filter in them and spray again. Make sure the filter is laying flat before you add the batter. I have found this keeps my cakes from sticking.
Awesome tip! Thank you!
If I dont have the yogurt, what can I replace it with?
Sour cream!! Sour Cream would actually work amazing too!
Did you use super sweet or gentle sweet THM?
I used the THM Super Sweet for this recipe (back when it was called Sweet Blend)… for Gentle Sweet (which is all I use now) I would go with 2/3 to 3/4s cup.
Thank you, Sarah, for the Italian Cream Cake recipe! Since going low carb/Keto, I’ve been on a quest to replace or convert some of my favorite dessert recipes & this was amazing! I used 3/4 c. Powdered Swerve & sour cream in the cake, & increased the sweetener in the frosting too. My pre-Keto recipe didn’t have any spices in it, so I omitted them from cake & frosting, and used only a pinch of salt in the frosting. It was mildly sweet, but moist and delicious!
That sounds AWESOME!!!
What are the macros?
I figured it out once but didn’t write it down… I’ll try to figure it out again.
Is the sweet blend , the gentle sweet ( thm) or super sweet?
It’s the Super Sweet… that was before they came out with the Gentle Sweet!
Plus you use Pyure for the sweetener?
Thanks
Not sure what I did wrong but it turned out mushy in the middle. I left it in the oven for 15 more minutes until i was worried it would burn.
I just made two cakes the other day that turned out, so I don’t think it’s my oven that’s the issue. Hmmmm
Hmmm. I honestly don’t know… I’ve made this several times and its never mushy in the middle. Maybe my oven is hotter. Next time try covering with foil. That tends to cook the inside of the cake better.
Can this cake be frozen?
I believe it can… I have not tried it but I don’t see why it would not work!
Made this today for my birthday. Tastes AMAZING but it didn’t come out of the pan together and the frosting was on the thicker side. What pan do you use? How soft should the cream cheese and butter be before mixing? Thanks
The frosting is a bit on the thick side but if it’s too think you can always thin it down with a little half & half or heavy whip.