Diabetic mooncake

[bill hopkinson]

I don't have a recipe.

It is the chinese harvest festival time when everyone eats mooncake - bean paste in a rich pastry, and my other half, every confidence in me, asked me if I could make diabetic mooncake!

Best recipes are lotus seeds and egg yolk ground/mixed to a paste with a egg-basted rich pastry covering with fancy patterns. For once I have no idea how to cut down the glycaemic index and produce something acceptably near what grandmother used to make.

 

[KookyCat]

I make "pastry" out of ground almonds instead of flour, which makes a very short pastry alternative that's very low carb. It works for tarts and quiches but not sure it would work free form, but might be worth investigating. It occurs to me though that a mix of flour and almond might give you enough elasticity to work with, you use egg in the all almond variety to compensate for the lack of gluten...hmm might be worth a try since aside from the sugar in the paste and the syrup on the pastry (in some varieties) the big carb element is the flour. I think almonds would be quite nice with the lotus bean paste. You'll have to post pictures when you've cracked it!

 

[bill hopkinson]

I make "pastry" out of ground almonds instead of flour, which makes a very short pastry alternative that's very low carb. It works for tarts and quiches but not sure it would work free form, but might be worth investigating. It occurs to me though that a mix of flour and almond might give you enough elasticity to work with, you use egg in the all almond variety to compensate for the lack of gluten...hmm might be worth a try since aside from the sugar in the paste and the syrup on the pastry (in some varieties) the big carb element is the flour. I think almonds would be quite nice with the lotus bean paste. You'll have to post pictures when you've cracked it!

That is an idea, to use ground almonds. I have gluten in the cupboard to add to my bread (which I load with linseed, pumpkins, etc) so I can give a flour and almond mix some elasticity.

 

[Vicsetter]

I've not had time to experiment yet, but the answer seems to be Xanthan gum.
I found this recipe for pie crust: http://www.landolakes.com/recipe/3071/pie-crust-gluten-free-recipe
You would have to remove the sugar and replace the gluten free flour with almond flour of course. If it's a savoury pie then use Splenda (or equivalent) to sweeten.