I’ve often wondered why they call this dessert a “pie”. I’ve always figured it was because pie tins were more available than the type of cake pan we think of today when this dish was created by a Boston chef. It’s my husband’s favorite cake, actually. He asked me if I thought I could make a low-carb version of his favorite cake and I decided to give it a try. This famous dessert is only as good as the cake it’s made with. I used Nancy’s 3 Minute Vanilla Cake on Linda Genaw’s site. So I thought that would be a good starting point. I baked two of those (slightly modified) in 6″ ceramic quiche dishes.
I actually had about half a batch of my current favorite low-carb chocolate frosting in the freezer, so I just defrosted it to use. For the cream filling, I used vanilla sugar-free pudding mix, changing how I make it. Cake was quite good and here’s a pic of the whole cake. This recipe is not suitable for Induction.
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CREAM FILLING INGREDIENTS: Whisk the following well in a small bowl. Chill for 20-30 minutes.
½ package sugar-free vanilla pudding powder
¼ c. heavy cream
½ c. water
If you prefer to make your pastry cream from scratch, I would recommend DJfoodie’s Pastry Cream recipe, but the stats below were calculated on the cream made with the dry pudding powder.
CHOCOLATE FROSTING INGREDIENTS: Make a recipe of this frosting and use 1/2 of it to frost this small cake. Refrigerate or freeze the remaining half for other uses. Exactly 1/2 of the recipe has been calculated in the nutritional info below.
CAKE INGREDIENTS:
4 T. butter, unsalted
2 eggs, beaten
4 T. water
½ c. granular Splenda (or equivalent liquid sweetener)
¼ c. golden flax meal
¼ c. almond flour
2/3 c. whey protein, unflavored, unsweetened
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. baking powder
DIRECTIONS: In your microwave, melt 2 T. of the butter in each of two small 6″ quiche dishes. Add 1 beaten egg and 2 T. of water to each dish. Stir well to blend. Next add to each baking dish: ¼ c. Splenda (or equivalent liquid sweetener) , 2 T. flax meal, 2 T. almond flour, 1/3 c. whey protein, ½ tsp. vanilla extract and ½ tsp. baking powder. Stir well until completely smooth. Microwave each layer for about 70 seconds or until center is dry and spring back when touched. Remove and cool slightly. Using a flexible spatula, gently tip/lift out layer to your serving plate.
Remove cream from refrigerator and stir once for smoothness. Gently spread a ¼-½” layer of cream onto bottom layer of cake, which may not use it all up. If you’ve got kids, not a problem. They’ll be happy to take care of the leftovers for ya! 😉 Don’t get the cream too close to the edges of the cake or it will ooze out when layer #2 goes on.
Gently remove second cake from the dish and set it carefully on top of the cream layer. Slightly press to seat it well. Now spread a thin layer of frosting on the top of the cake. Frosting the sides is tricky, as the cream tends to want to ooze out and mix with the frosting. Not a problem, just smooth such spots back and forth and the cream and frosting will blend and nobody will ever know but you. 😉
Store uneaten cake in the refrigerator. Chill cake for 30 minutes or so to set the frosting and it’s ready to serve. I find this cake gets firmer when totally cold, so the next day, if any leftover, I like to pull it out of the fridge for an hour before serving so the cake and frosting return to their softer state. 🙂
NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes 6 servings, each contains: (Carbs will be lower if you use liquid sweetener)
271 cals. , 23 g fat, 8.7g carbs, 2.22g fiber, 6.48g NET CARBS, 13 g protein, 250 mg sodium
SPECIAL NOTE: For those that want a bigger slice (with a higher carb price to pay): 1/4 of the cake=406 calories, 13.05 carbs, 3.33 g fiber, 9.72 g NET CARBS, 19.1 g protein, and 374 mg sodium.
Buttoni's Low-Carb Recipes 
Hi. Is there a way to substitute at least part of this with coconut flour and have it still taste good and have a good texture? Thanks.
I would not personally do that. Coconut flour is very difficult to work with and can result in many trial and error disasters before you get the amount right. Plus it will give the cake a fonky coconut taste, and will likely mess with the texture. For so many reasons, I don’t like to use much coconut flour in my baked goods.