Toasted Tea Cake

Nov 18, 2025

I met a friend in a cafe recently.  She had a buttered toasted tea cake with her coffee. Although it's years since I ate one, or even thought of one, it felt suddenly imperative for me to find and bake a low carb version as soon as humanly possible!  It reminded me that I used to love them.   But back home, searching on line for low carb toasted tea cake recipes to try, I discovered there weren’t actually any :/  

That’s okay – a toasted tea cake is just a bread roll with spices, fruit and some healthy sweetness added. And whilst low carb tea cake recipes apparently haven't been invented yet, low carb bread recipes abound.

I went with Dr Berg’s bread recipe. Of all the bread recipes I’ve tried to date, his has the most authentic bread flavour. Possibly because it has no egg in the mix - and it’s also made with yeast. It’s capable of surviving the toaster without disintegrating into a miserable, crumbly offering too.  And with the spice, fruit and sweetener added........voila! I'm very happy to report it turns into a lovely little toasted tea cake.

NB Dr Berg’s bread recipe includes arrowroot flour. Although arrowroot contains carbs - making it unsuitable for keto (13g per 100g), it’s a flour that has a low glycaemic index. He also adds a small amount of maple syrup to his recipe, but this is for the yeast, rather than the consumer of the bread roll to feed on. I didn’t have maple syrup, so I used coconut nectar.  I imagine any natural sweetener containing sugar, such as agave, date syrup, or molasses, would also work with the yeast.

120g almond flour
120g arrowroot flour
40g cup coconut flour
1 tsp salt
250ml warm water
2 tsp active dry yeast
1½ tbsp chia seeds
2 tbsp psyllium husk powder
2 tsp maple syrup (this will be consumed by the yeast, which lowers the glycemic index)
1 egg large, for egg wash (optional)

To adapt these rolls to tea cakes, I also added:
1 tbsp (rounded) of sweetener *
3 ½ tsp mixed spice
20g finely chopped golden berries.

Preheat oven to 200C/Gas mark 6.
In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients - almond flour, arrowroot flour, coconut flour, chia and psyllium husks, sweetener, chopped golden berries, mixed spice and salt.
Add maple syrup/coconut nectar to the warm water and stir. Add the 2 teaspoons active dry yeast to the water and let it stand for approx. 10 minutes – until the yeast has started to bubble.
Pour the yeast mixture into the dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon until thick and fully combined. The dough will be slightly sticky, but workable. Knead for 1 minute.
Divide the dough into 6 balls. Place dough balls on a square of parchment paper or cutting board. Dip your hands in water and shape into round shapes. Brush with 1 egg at this stage if you’re using it.
Bake for 30 minutes. Baking time can vary. The base should seem hollow when you tap it.
Let the rolls cool completely on a wire rack. Not allowing the bread to fully cool before cutting may result in a gummy interior. When cool, slice and serve or store in an air-tight container.