Search Results for '("C'

[Mike Nolan]

Haven't tried it yet,but it's a bit crumbly, a big corner of it broke off as I was handling it. But given that it didn't have any gluten or a gum (like xanthan) for structure, that may not be surprising. I will try slicing it at lunchtime.

I've ordered a bag of King Arthur's new keto flour, we'll see how it works, but it's really expensive.

[Mike Nolan]

The custards taste like custard, though they could probably have used a little more allulose. (Allulose is about 75% as sweet as sucrose.) Diane thinks more vanilla would help.

They did dome a bit in the middle, something I've never seen custard do before, but they collapsed as they cooled.

[BakerAunt]

I baked two loaves of Pumpkin Mixed Grains Bread, a recipe that had its origins in a Jane Brody recipe for Pumpkin-Rye Bread. My version is over two-thirds wholegrain, with whole wheat flour and dark and pumpernickel rye. I also added some of the King Arthur six-grain blend and this time increased it from ½ to 2/3 cup, as well as increasing the water I use from ¼ to 1/3 cup. (I substitute 1 ½ cups of buttermilk for the rest.) I found a 1 cup container of kabocha squash puree from two years ago in the freezer, so I combined it with 1 cup of pie pumpkin puree. I look forward to sampling the bread tomorrow. Just the way the dough felt and the baking smell tells me I am on the right track.

[Mike Nolan]

$2.19-$2.29 is what I'm seeing for eggs at places like Aldi and Walmart, $2.89 is what I'm seeing in other grocery stores.

Tonight's butter-poached lobster was very good, the low-carb gnocchi was OK, but felt a bit gritty, maybe that's the almond flour. I made an alfredo sauce to go with the gnocchi, I think it clashed with the lobster, the original recipe recommended a lemon-butter-tarragon sauce; we tried a few with lemon-butter from the lobsters, that was an improvement.

I also made a low carb hot fudge sauce to go with some reduced sugar ice cream for dessert in a while. I think it'll be OK on the ice cream with some strawberries, but it isn't the same as real hot fudge sauce. (I've yet to find a recipe for hot fudge sauce that matches what I get through soda fountain suppliers. Of the ones at the grocery store, Mrs. Richardson's hot fudge sauce is the one I like best.)

[Mike Nolan]

I tried another half-batch of peanut butter cookies, this time the only change I made was substituting almond flour for the wheat flour. (I did accidentally put in a whole egg rather than a half egg, and that made the cookies flatten out a bit more.)

They're pretty good, the almond flour changes the taste a little, but they taste good enough that Diane had two this evening. And they're somewhere around 6 carbs each as opposed to 9 carbs for the originals.

[chocomouse]

I made lemon muffins, using the new-to-me Lemon Crumbles. I used my own basic muffin recipe, and stirred in about a cup of crumbles plus a tablespoon of my favorite Lemon Juice Powder. The crumbles are good, more sweet than tart, so I don't care for the muffins as much as I love them made with 3 tablespoons of the tart juice powder. I think adding some pecans would add a lot to the flavor. And KAF has a recipe for lemon streusel (I think it is part of a lemon something recipe) which I often put on top of muffins but might be good swirled through the batter in the tins. I now have some good excuses for future experimenting!

[Mike Nolan]

I tried making peanut butter cookies using almond flour with monkfruit and erythritol (corrected) as the sweetener. Erythritol tends to leave a 'cool' sensation on the tongue and there was kind of an aftertaste as well, which may be from the monkfruit. The texture was off, but that's more easily fixed than taste issues. So I call this one a fail.

I may see what happens if I use allulose, which browns faster than sucrose, so I'll have to watch for that.

[BakerAunt]

Bob Moore, founder of the Bob's Red Mill company, has passed away. I first discovered the BRM flours when I needed dark rye flour for my Limpa bread. It was so much better than the rye flour that I found in the stores. Gradually, I began using more BRM products, as they often had flours, beans, grains, seeds, nuts, and dried fruits that I could not find elsewhere. I exclusively use their whole wheat flour, which I think has a slightly sweeter taste and works better than the King Arthur whole wheat.

I have been somewhat disappointed in the company in the last few years, as it stopped carrying some products important to me: the ivory (white whole wheat) flour, the barley flour, the unhulled sesame seed, the dried apples, the dried cherries. I am sometimes irritated by too much of a focus on the gluten-free crowd, but King Arthur does that also. However, Bob Moore's focus on wholegrains greatly influenced my baking.

https://pdx.eater.com/2024/2/12/24070041/bob-moore-bobs-red-mill-death-obituary?ueid=c2ffcf78ce760c4feca3d04b80fdc8a1&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Eater%20National%20-%2002/12/2024&utm_term=Eater%20Today

[BakerAunt]

On Sunday, I baked Leckerli, which is a Tyrolean holiday cookie. The recipe comes from McCall's Cooking School (#11), with a publication date of 1983/1984. Although Leckerli is considered a Christmas cookie, the cut-out hearts of this recipe remind me of Valentine's Day. The first time I baked it many years ago, I had a lot of problems with the dough, probably because I did not have the almonds ground evenly, and the dough also stuck to the waxed paper horribly. I may have baked them another time, although I do not recall doing so. The recipe requires candied lemon and orange peels, which became hard to find once King Arthur stopped carrying it. (It was back seasonally this year.) I had a jar of candied orange peel, and I found a jar of candied lemon peel in the Annex refrigerator. When my older bonus son stayed with us a couple of years ago, he had moved it, so last year, I thought that I had none. (Really, putting it in the butter holder in the door?) I ordered another bag to be ready for this year, and of course I then found it.

Instead of grinding unblanched almonds, I looked a the King Arthur weight chart and found out that 1 cup unblanched almonds weights 5 oz. or 142 grams. I needed 1 ½ cups, so I used 213 grams of Bob's natural almond flour (made with the skins). That certainly makes for a dough that is easier to roll. I divided the dough into fourths, as specified, but instead of rolling it out onto waxed paper, I cut half-sheets of parchment in half, which fits rolling it out to the specified 9 x 8-inch rectangle, although the eight inches takes it right to the edge. I put saran wrap over it to roll and for the required hour of refrigeration. When I cut the hearts, I moved out the trimmings, and left them on the paper, rearranging a bit for spacing, which I moved to a baking sheet, so there were two on each sheet. That works very well. My heart cutter is larger than the 3-inch specified, so I got six hearts per rectangle rather than nine. [Why do I never have the exact size of cutter a recipe specifies?!] I re-rolled the trimmings and ended up with 34 cookies--the last one being a smaller blob.

It was hard to know when they were baked. The recipe stated 8-10 minutes, and because mine were larger, I gave them 12 minutes. I had to let them cool a bit before removing them to a rack for the glaze. I baked them on parchment rather than directly on the baking sheet (recipe says ungreased baking sheet, so that may have affected them as well. They were a bit soft when moved but have firmed on cooling.

The recipe makes 46, so a slightly smaller cutter--mine was about 3 ½ inches--would be ideal. I thought that it used a lot of glaze for the baked cookies, so I made a half recipe, which was perfect. I did not do the decorating with candied red or green cherries (have none) and citron, but the cookies do not really need that unless one is out to do a showstopper presentation at a fancy party.

We will try the cookies with tea today, and I will post about the taste and texture.

[chocomouse]

I made arepas today. They are not very pretty, but taste excellent. I chopped up 1 cup of whole kernel corn (canned, drained) to add to the batter; and I think this adds a lot to the flavor, although fresh would be even better. After they were cooked on the griddle, I put shredded mozzarella between two of them for lunch.

[Mike Nolan]

Diane's not really into the Super Bowl. She may watch the ads, but even those don't really grab her any more. She's got a massage scheduled at 5:30.

We've got some keto-friendly (more or less) snacks ready, but there's a limit to how much of those I can eat, and I'll probably have a bowl of vegetable beef soup at halftime. (I don't care for most of the acts recently, including Usher.)

[BakerAunt]

I learned yesterday that Cass Avona (Kid Pizza) passed away January 23, 2024. He had been in declining health, fell, was moved into hospice, and apparently died shortly thereafter.

I found out because my Christmas card, posted on Dec. 19, came back on January 31, marked that the addressee was not known. I sent an email to his address a couple of days later, in case I had the wrong address, as he had moved at least three times. Yesterday, a person responded on his email to tell me the details I have related above.

I will miss his occasional phone calls and the baking and cooking knowledge that he shared with us here and on the Baking Circle.

[Mike Nolan]

It's Super Bowl Sunday, any party plans? (I'm looking into snacks that are more or less keto friendly, it's a challenge!)

[Mike Nolan]

I made a keto-friendly bread today (egg whites, almond flour and coconut flour, mostly), still waiting for it to cool to see how it is.

Followup:

Well, it came out looking more or less like the picture on the recipe, though maybe it could have stood a little longer in the oven. And using pasteurized egg whites is always a bit challenging, they don't whip up quite as high as fresh egg whites.

As to the taste, I've definitely had worse, toasted and with a little margarine and peanut butter it tasted mostly like peanut butter, and it had enough crunch and texture to feel like I was actually eating something close to a sandwich.

The real test is if I can use it for something like cheese toast or a BLT.

For a first try, it was somewhat better than expected, but I think I can improve upon it.

[Mike Nolan]

A lot of what's out there tend to ignore or gloss over the science (that's true for most diet trends), but the ketogenic diet can be traced back to the 1920's, when it was developed as a diet for controlling epilepsy, before the drugs that are mostly used today were developed.

The basic principle is to keep the carbs consumed down while raising the amount of protein and, especially, fat. How low you have to get varies from person to person, generally below 50 carbs/day, though 20-30 is more likely to be successful.

Once the body uses up its reserves of glycogen (about 3 days worth, stored mostly in the liver and also in muscles), it will start converting fat to glycogen for energy. This is called ketogenesis. The trick is to avoid getting your ketones too high, which can turn the blood acidic, and is called ketoacidosis. It can be fatal. But there's a pretty wide range of ketone numbers where you're in ketogenesis before that happens.

There are multiple ways to test your ketones, some are better (or at least more accurate) than others.

Some of the proponents of the keto diet or its offshoots tend to get preachy, telling you to avoid most of the meats and other proteins in stores for reasons that have nothing to do with ketogenisis, eat only organic foods, avoid all gluten, etc.

A cyclical ketogenic diet should be a bit more flexible, allowing some carbs, even (oh, the shame of it all!) wheat. 🙂

Because fats are taste bombs, a ketogenic diet can be very tasty and filling. (Fats also fill you up faster and leave you more satisfied than carbs.)

Tonight, for example, we had a cheese souffle with mushroom sauce, using some almond flour and xanthan gum, cream (watered down), eggs, butter, cheddar cheese and mushrooms. A serving was probably 4-5 carbs (I'm checking it using multiple recipe analysis tools), and it was delicious! By comparison, my traditional souffle recipe (served with canned mushroom soup as a sauce) is more like 30-40 carbs/serving.

Being an engineer by training, I think I'll read some of the scientific papers on ketogenesis as we get further into this, but I don't claim that I'll fully understand them.