It’s the last day of November and I was at the Federation square in the heart of Melbourne city to watch the lighting of the ceremonial Christmas tree. We are at the cusp of summer in Southern hemisphere and supposed to be in warmer weather. Instead it is pretty chilly, damp and drizzling intermittently. A reasonable amount of people has gathered watching the live performances ignoring the rather gloomy weather.

The year just went so fast that it feels like the New Year’s Eve was just the other day. I was still in the early days of my keto journey. And I often get asked why I don’t go off Keto and how do you manage to maintain your diet all this while. The answer is simple, one can always substitute with keto friendly ingredients to make your most favourite dishes. For me it was mostly cakes and bread that I missed. And thus, started my research on alternative to refined sugar and flour.

6 months into Keto I have also started incorporating Intermittent Fasting(IF) protocol to help with the weight loss. It is nothing but you fast for a certain number of hours, and you eat between certain number of hours during the day. I started with a 16:8 fasting protocol, where I stayed fasting for 16 hours and I ate 2 meals between the 8-hour window. Working out regularly was also part of routines. Often I would break my fast with a light meal or a snack and in a few hours I would train at the gym. After my work out I would be having my main meal with in 45 minutes. These days I have moved to 20:4 protocol daily and one 36 hours extended fast(EF) per week.

I would post my diet later in another post as it is an entire different topic. However, bear in mind that everybody is different and have different metabolic rates. So it is important to adapt what is suitable to your body.

It is Christmas time and naturally it is the season of indulgence. So, with the spirit of the holiday season in mind I found an excellent recipe for a very light, low carb gingerbread cake. And I found one in a website called https://healthyrecipesblogs.com/gingerbread-cake/ As usual I had to tweak the recipe to make it more keto friendly and keep it lower on the carb counts. Please try on this festive season and let me know how you liked this delicious cake.

Low Carb Gingerbread Cake

An easy recipe for moist, fluffy and flavourful keto gingerbread cake.

Prep Time 15 minutes, Cook Time 20 minutes, Rest time 20 minutes Total Time 55 minutes

Servings 9 squares Calories 175kcal

Ingredients
  • ½ tablespoon unsalted butter for pan
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1/4 cup whole milk (I used ¼ cup of heavy cream to make it Keto friendly)
  • 2 tablespoon unsalted butter
  • 1.5 teaspoons melted stevia glycerite (equals 1/2 cup sugar) (I used ¾ cups of granulated Erythritol)
  • 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 tablespoon cocoa powder, natural, unsweetened (Do not use Dutch processed cocoa powder as it will inhibit the texture of the cake. Dutch processed cocoa powder may not work well with baking soda)
  • 1 tablespoon fresh ground ginger (I used 2 table spoons instead of 1 tablespoon as I love the dominant ginger taste. It’s optional you don’t have to add the extra grated ginger)
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt (I used pink Himalayan salt)
  • 1½ cups blanched almond flour
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
Instructions
  • Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Generously grease a glass 8X8-inch baking dish with butter.
  • In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, melted butter, stevia, cinnamon, cocoa powder, ginger and kosher salt.
  • Whisk in the almond flour, then the baking soda.
  • Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake until puffed and a toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean, about 20 minutes.
  • Cool in pan on a cooling rack for 20 minutes, then cut into nine squares and serve.

Nutrition Serving: 1square | Calories: 175kcal | Carbohydrates: 5g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 15g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Sodium: 167mg | Fibre: 2g | Sugar: 1g

PS: Because I have played with the ingredients the above Macro table may not be accurate, however if you stick to the original recipe it will hold good.

About the Author

George Samuel is a food entrepreneur, currently working on a low-carb food startup business in Melbourne Australia. He has 30 years of experience as Project Manager in the IT and Telecomm sector. Food is his passion and he has appeared on Victorian Channel 31 delivering cookery shows for Black and White digital media in 2012. He is passionate about clean eating and whole foods and is also a big advocate of sugar free living. His mission is to help people to live a disease-free lifestyle.

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