Despite all the benefits this keto lifestyle has provided, goddammit do I miss baked goods.
So, this weekend, I tried my hand at two different baked goods – one savory, one sweet. The verdict? Maybe keto baking isn’t for me. 😦
Still, I took some pictures and thought I’d share my failure all the same.
First up, a savory coconut flour biscuit based loosely off this recipe. Rather than garlic and cheese, I went with sage, hazelnuts, and duck fat – I replaced half the butter called for with an equal amount of duck fat (about 2 Tbsp.) It went a little something like this:
The biscuits smelled incredible, but I found the overall recipe a bit too eggy for my taste, and I probably used too much sage (about 1 Tbsp). So, I tried my hand at an impromptu gravy using duck fat, heavy cream, and a dab of Better Than Bouillon chicken base. Three thumbs up for the gravy. 11/10, will pour over everything.
VERDICT: I will definitely try these again. Perhaps with one yolk removed? Or maybe a mix of coconut flour and almond flour? We’ll see. Seriously, though, duck fat gravy forever.
Next up was my attempt to do something with this basic coconut flour cookie recipe. I anticipated the recipe being a little too basic for my taste, so I decided to make sandwich cookies using this low-carb nutella recipe. I already had hella hazelnuts anyway.
After adding all the ingredients per the original recipe, I added a couple of extra tablespoons of butter to make the mixture a bit smoother/glossier/spreadable. It worked!
I made no changes to the coconut flour recipe, but I think I may have used too much coconut flour. The dough was very dry and crumbly. I’m completely inexperienced as a baker and wasn’t sure how to remedy that. Thankfully, the chocolate-hazelnut spread helped quite a bit. Here’s how it all went down:
VERDICT: Ehhh… Everything smelled incredible, but the cookies themselves were dry and gritty. Again, I think I messed up with the amount of flour, so that’s on me. Both the cookies and the spread had a noticeable tang of sugar substitute (I used Stevia in the Raw.) Perhaps I’m just too new to keto to appreciate a good sugar substitute (I still remember what real sugar tastes like), or I’m just using the wrong ones.
While this weekend’s experiments in keto baking were certainly fun and educational, I feel the overwhelming lesson was that keto baking is hard and I suck at it. I have a lot of learning left to do.
My first experiment I didn’t have almond flour and figured coconut flour would work the same. They don’t. I’ll try to find a title I’ve used that goes into detail for working with the odd ingredients and pass it your way.
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That would be terrific! Thank you!
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Try The Ketogenic Bread Cookbook by Elizabeth Jane. It’s Kindle-only but has tips on the order of ingredients and ranks recipes by difficulty and ingredient cost. Nice pictures, too. Well done for the size.
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Thanks so much for the recommendation!
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I tried almond flour pancakes — so much nope. There ended up being more egg than flour and it all came apart anyways.
Since then I only use almond flour as a binder and a “breading”
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Argh! Have you tried coconut flour at all?
Good call on using alternative flours as binders. I used just a smidge of coconut flour in my gravy as a thickening agent and it worked well! No coconut flavor and the texture of the gravy remained smooth despite the graininess of the flour.
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I haven’t. Honestly, I haven’t been looking for it lol. After my almond flour fiasco, I’ve just been keeping it pretty basic.
Also, my S.O. hates, and I mean LOATHES, all things coconut. And he eats the vast majority of my cooking…
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How does someone LOATHE coconut? It’s the best! 😛
I’m lucky, my fiancé is a vegetarian (not the healthy kind, the beer and cheese pizza kind) and I cook mostly meats. I rarely have to consider his preferences when cooking. 😛
I must admit that after this weekend’s experiments, I’m fairly disinclined to explore keto baking any further.
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I don’t blame you.
I do want to get the gumption up to try cloud bread, but I’d hate to waste eggs….
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Well, if you do try it, I’d love to hear about it! I’m definitely going to take at least a little break from baking. 😉
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