lemon poppyseed, sugar free cake with a peanut butter chocolate frosting

My husband is the true sweets lover – I’m more of a carbs and salt person. That being said, there are times when a slice of cake is just perfect… Especially last week when we scored on some sugar-free chocolate chips and hazelnut flour.

Just a small 8” and 6” round, two tiered cake for two was perfect. We munched on this for the remaining week and decided it truly was good enough to share with all of you. Even if my husband has difficulty sharing with just me…

You Will Need:

* Poppyseeds

* Lemon Extract

* Hazelnut Flour (if you can’t find this, almond flour is fine as a substitute)

* Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk (for extra chocolatey goodness, get the unsweetened chocolate almond milk)

* Baking Soda

* Sugar Free Chocolate Chips (the best brand is Lily’s – we use semi-sweet and milk chocolate bags typically)

* Toothpicks

* Coconut Oil

* Vanilla Extract

* 3 Large Eggs

* Monk Fruit Sweetener (granulated)

* All Natural Peanut Butter (check the back; should only state peanuts and salt – I will show a picture below)

* Unsalted Butter

* Olive Oil / Non-Stick Cooking Spray

* Cake Pan(s) (I used an 8” round and a 6” round – made for a small cake. If you’re okay with that, continue to use the amounts below. Otherwise, this would bake two 6” rounds just fine)

Take the following measurements of each and throw them all into a stand mixer or bowl and blend together with a hand mixer:

2 1/2 Cups of Hazelnut (or almond) Flour
1/2 Teaspoon of Baking Soda
1/3 Cup of Unsweetened Vanilla (or chocolate) Almond Milk
1/3 Cup of Coconut Oil (stick in microwave on 20-30 secs to melt for measurement)
1 1/2 Tablespoons of Monk Fruit Sweetener
1 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract
2 Tablespoons of Poppyseeds
1 Tablespoon of Lemon Extract
2 Tablespoons of Unsalted Butter (stick in microwave on 20-30 secs to melt for measurement)
3 Large Eggs

When completely blended, spray your cake pans with non-stick cooking spray and pour an equal amount in each. Please see above for size recommendations (can fill two 6” rounds completely, otherwise will make a small tiered cake).

Bake on 350 for 40 minutes.

While those cook, start on your frosting.

You’ll see I used the semi-sweet for the frosting but Lily’s has every range and this would have been very good with milk chocolate as well.

You can see no added sugar and the ingredients:

Please see the brand of peanut butter we use – or in the very least, what you should be looking for to get all natural peanut butter: peanuts and salt. Only.

In a sauce pan, pour at least one cup of the chocolate chips over medium low heat. Then add two tablespoons each of butter and the peanut butter. Stir over medium low until combined.

Keep it on low until the cakes are done so that it doesn’t harden. At this point, taste and see if you want to add any salt, more chocolate or peanut butter.

When the timer goes off, take a toothpick and test the cakes to see if they’re done by sticking the toothpick in the middle of the cakes and pull them out. If they come out “clean” (no batter residue) they’re done. If not, leave them in for five min more increments until done.

Take the cakes, remove from the pans and set aside to cool.

When cooled, put a paper towel under the cakes and pour the chocolate onto each round and smooth the frosting until covered. The paper towel will catch any extra drips. If you have any additional frosting left over, you can use it to dunk fruit into. We did that with the strawberries we happened to have.

Now, let sit until everything hardens and then decide how you want to display the cake. Since it was small and for just us two, I decided to sprinkle the cake with some additional chocolate chips cascading down the side, added some PB2 (powered peanut butter) over the top (though some brown sugar or shaved coconut would have worked as well) and a fresh sprig of mint for color.

You can see its a shorter cake that ended up being just enough for the both of us. Once you cut into the cake, you can see the chocolate layers and can smell the lemon and hazelnut with the peanut butter in the frosting.