Keto Zucchini Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting (2024)

A moist, gluten-free Keto Zucchini Cake with wonderful spices flavors, and crunchy pecans.

The best part, one slice has only 3.2 grams of net carbs for a sweet keto breakfast to pair with your bulletproof coffee.

If your garden is full of zucchinis and you have no idea what to do with them, try to bake a zucchini cake or zucchini bread.

Zucchini is a keto-approved vegetable that adds the most beautiful moist texture to cakes! On top of that, zucchinis have amazing nutrients for your health!

What’s A Zucchini Cake?

A zucchini cake is a moist, light, and fluffy cake baked in a 9-inch round or square pan. Zucchini cakes are not as dense as zucchini bread recipes.

It has the same spice flavors as zucchini bread, with crunchy nuts and moist grated zucchini all over the crumb.

This is a perfect breakfast cake or coffee cake.

How To Make Zucchini Cake

Before you start making this recipe, make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature, especially the eggs and cream cheese.

Then, weigh each ingredient individually in a small bowl. This is a great way to be accurate in baking.

Ingredients

All you need are:

• Eggs – at room temperature.
• Erythritol – find out how to convert sweeteners on my sweetener converter.
• Vanilla
• Heavy cream – or canned coconut cream if paleo, shake the can before measuring. Learn why heavy cream is keto-friendly.
• Coconut flour
• Almond flour – don’t swap for more coconut flour, or the crumb will be too dry. Learn how to choose your keto flour.
• Grated zucchinis – water removed. See the next paragraph for tips on how to squeeze out water from shredded zucchinis. Zucchini is one of the most keto-friendly vegetables.
• Salt
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg
• Ginger
• Chopped pecan nuts – or walnuts or sugar-free chocolate chips.
• Baking powder

For the cake frosting, you will need:

• Butter – soft, at room temperature.
• Cream Cheese – soft at room temperature.
• Powdered erythritol
• Unsweetened almond milk – add up to 2 tablespoons if your frosting is too thick and dense.

Keto Zucchini Cake Tips

This keto zucchini cake recipe is very easy to make in one bowl.

There are a few important steps to follow to avoid a watery cake that won’t bake. Let me guide you through this!

Shred and dry the zucchini

First, shred the zucchini finely in a food processor or with a hand grater. I recommended keeping the zucchini skin on and shredding as thin as you can for the best texture. Then, place the shredded zucchinis in the center of a towel.

Gather the four corners of the towel together and squeeze as much as you can to extract all the water from the zucchinis. This is the most important part of your zucchini cake recipe.

In fact, zucchinis are made at 80% of water, and keeping too much water will make the cake watery, and eventually, it won’t bake at all.

Measure flours carefully

This recipe uses coconut flour, a high fiber keto flour that contains 4 times more fiber than any other flour. As a result, it is a high water-absorbent flour which means that missing some of it will result in a cake being too moist.

That is why I recommend measuring flours with the scoop and sweep method. It means that first, you fill the cup, and then you sweep the extra ‘bump’ on of the cup.

For more tips and tricks and to learn all my keto baking secrets, check out my Keto Baking Guide ebook.

Cream cheese frosting

This zucchini cake won’t be as delicious without its cream cheese frosting. However, remember to always cool the cake for at least 2 hours before spreading your frosting on top of the cake. Also, always prepare the frosting just before using it.

In fact, making the frosting ahead and storing it in the fridge hardens the cream cheese, making it difficult to spread on top of the cake.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I Make The Cake Dairy-free?

For paleo followers who don’t eat dairy, you can swap the heavy cream with canned coconut cream in the cake batter. Simply shake the can before measuring for precision.

Regarding the frosting, you can replace the cream cheese with pure thick coconut yogurt. Simply combine yogurt with powdered sweetener and vanilla, no need for butter or coconut oil.

Can I bake the cake in a bread pan?

This is a very moist cake, and you must bake it in a 9-inch round or square pan. This recipe won’t bake as a loaf of bread. It will be too moist.

However, if you prefer a zucchini bread recipe, I have two you can try: chocolate zucchini bread or zucchini pecan bread.

Can I taste the zucchini?

No, this cake has no zucchini flavor at all. Zucchinis are used in baking to add a moist texture and nutritional value.

Made this healthy zucchini keto cake recipe? Leave me a review and comment below or even better, join me on Instagram and share a picture of your creation with me.

About The Author

Carine Claudepierre

Hi, I'm Carine, the food blogger, author, recipe developer, published author of a cookbook and many ebooks, and founder of Sweet As Honey.

I have an Accredited Certificate in Nutrition and Wellness obtained in 2014 from Well College Global (formerly Cadence Health). I'm passionate about sharing all my easy and tasty recipes that are both delicious and healthy. My expertise in the field comes from my background in chemistry and years of following a keto low-carb diet. But I'm also well versed in vegetarian and vegan cooking since my husband is vegan.

I now eat a more balanced diet where I alternate between keto and a Mediterranean Diet

Cooking and Baking is my true passion. In fact, I only share a small portion of my recipes on Sweet As Honey. Most of them are eaten by my husband and my two kids before I have time to take any pictures!

All my recipes are at least triple tested to make sure they work and I take pride in keeping them as accurate as possible.

Browse all my recipes with my Recipe Index.

I hope that you too find the recipes you love on Sweet As Honey!