low carb italian cream cake

one of my favorite desserts ever is italian cream cake. i made it last year for the first time for our christmas eve dessert. and let me tell you... it was SO good. we all got sick from eating too much. so for my birthday this year i decided this was what i wanted.. but of course i needed to find a way to make it low carb:) it worked! my version tastes exactly the same as the full-carb version, without all the guilt! i made them into cupcakes this time for "portion control" (i just had two, so i guess it didnt really work) , im guessing each cupcake has around five carbs. ENJOY!

Low Carb Italian Cream CupCakes

Makes 24 cupcakes

1/2 cup shortening

1 stick butter

2 cups granulated Splenda

5 eggs, seperated

1/2 cup almond flour

1/2 cup soy flour

1/2 cup flax meal

1/2 cup white flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup half&half

1/2 cup sour cream

2 cups unsweetened flake coconut

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp almond extract (a MUST)

1 cup finely chopped pecans or walnuts

FROSTING

1 can Pillsbury Sugar Free Vanilla Frosting

1 8oz brick Cream Cheese or Neufchatel (thats what i used)

1/2 tsp almond extract (once again, this is a MUST)

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 325, (or do this later, i know my oven doesnt take this long to heat up). Grease and flour 2 cupcake pans, or use liners.

In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the shortening, butter and splenda until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks one a time. Sift together the four flours, the baking soda, and the salt. In a separate bowl, mix together the half&half and the sour cream. Alternately add the flour mixture and the half&half mixture into the butter mixture, mixing on low speed and scraping bowl often.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they're stiff (when you lift the mixer up, the whites should hold stiff peaks). Gently fold them into the batter. Fold in the extracts, coconut, and nuts. Fill each cupcake with about 1/4 cup of batter. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until they look like the picture below, they wont be as brown as you may think they should be, thats because of the Splenda.

Mix the frosting ingredients together with a mixer till fluffy. Frost and sprinkle tops with extra walnuts.

YUM!