Let's learn how to bake/cook keto.

[mopinwil]

Instead of me just sprinkling keto recipes and pictures all over the forum - though I will probably do that too - how about we have a thread here and I share stuff here and maybe you try some of the recipes and share your results and any ideas/tips/feedback and that way we all learn more and it makes it all more achievable and somewhere people can pop along for some encouragement and inspiration?

I'll start with the basic first keto recipe I started with and which I still use a LOT and which can be modified into cakes etc and is quick and easy in the microwave.

Microwave keto bread. (for those without a microwave - 200C standard oven/170C fan for about 15 mins)
1 portion - takes about five minutes from start to finish.
1/4 cup of almond flour (65g)
1 tablespoon of melted salted butter (15g) - 1 tablespoon of unmelted butter then melted. I use a small ceramic bowl for this step.
1 teaspoon baking powder.
1 teaspoon psyllium husk
1/4 teaspoon of ground nutritional yeast (you can leave this out it is just for flavour)
1/4 teaspoon of coconut flour (again just for flavour and can be left out)
tiny pinch of salt - very tiny again for flavour.
1 medium egg.

First melt the butter in the microwave - I have 900w and I do it for 30 seconds on full and then leave it while I get on with the next stuff.
Put the almond flour and all the other dried stuff together in small bowl and mix it carefully with a fork until you can't see any separate powders. No yellow from the yeast and no white from the baking powder - it is all one mixture then crack the egg into the melted butter and beat with a fork until you get a custard yellow mixture.
Then make a little hole in the flour mixture and pour the egg mixture into that and then mix it together with the fork until you get a nice 'puffy' mixture/light dough.
Scrape the mixture into a small square glass container - you can use a round one but it needs to be flat bottomed if you want slices for a sandwich.
Put into the microwave and cook on full for 90 seconds - if it hasn't puffed up much you can put it back in for another 10s.
Then tip it out onto a mesh surface to cool. Once it is cool enough to hold in your hands - very carefully using a bread knife - slice it through the middle to make 2 slices.

These days I crack the egg into a silicone cake mold and mix everything in there and then put it in the microwave and I don't always bother with the butter nor the psyllium husk and I add half a teaspoon of xanthan gum if I want a nicely risen sponge mixture - I tend not to use this for bread any more since I started making proper loaves in the bread machine. But this is a good basis for cakes and is very forgiving and I can make a great syrup sponge pudding that is indistinguishable from the ones you get in a plastic tub to microwave. Also it makes excellent chocolate cup cakes and a Victoria Sponge but I double the recipe and sometimes add double cream and other stuff. It is a great recipe to play with because it is so fast so you can take a chance on it and gain confidence.

If you make the bread version you can then use that as a base for stuffing to have with roast poultry or you can use it to make bread sauce very successfully or you can slice it up and use it in a bread and butter pudding.

Love the idea of this for when I crave bread. I already use almond flour for waffles 🙂. I like experimenting with cooking and have learnt a lot since joining this lovely forum. I have lowered my bs levels considerably, mainly because of the advice in this forum. So happy!

 

[jill-mc]

This is a yummy keto choc mousse on a crumble base.
Melt one and half dessert spoons butter and add 6 dessert spoons almond flour, and pinch of cinnamon. Mix to a crumbly dough and line bottom of dish with the mixture (I use 3 small dessert dishes).
Pour half a tin of coconut milk into a separate dish. Add 6 squares 100% dark chocolate (I use Montezuma absolute black), 1 teaspoon cocoa powder, sprinkling of sweetener, if desired, and few drops vanilla essence.
Warm up mixture(I put it in microwave) till chocolate has melted, stirring occasionally.
Let mixture cool slightly, then whisk well.
Pour over crumb base, put into fridge to chill/set for few hours.
Enjoy!

 

[mopinwil]

This is a yummy keto choc mousse on a crumble base.
Melt one and half dessert spoons butter and add 6 dessert spoons almond flour, and pinch of cinnamon. Mix to a crumbly dough and line bottom of dish with the mixture (I use 3 small dessert dishes).
Pour half a tin of coconut milk into a separate dish. Add 6 squares 100% dark chocolate (I use Montezuma absolute black), 1 teaspoon cocoa powder, sprinkling of sweetener, if desired, and few drops vanilla essence.
Warm up mixture(I put it in microwave) till chocolate has melted, stirring occasionally.
Let mixture cool slightly, then whisk well.
Pour over crumb base, put into fridge to chill/set for few hours.
Enjoy!

This tweaked to suit my own dietery needs will be great for an occasional treat - Thank you very much for sharing. 🙂

 

[NotWorriedAtAll]

I made these tonight. Cinnamon and Ginger almond biscuits with an edible gold lustre and gold star sprinkles. Practising for Christmas. They are keto. I will add the recipe tomorrow. Off to bed now.

 

[Jacinta (Australian)]

They look delicious 🙂

 

[NotWorriedAtAll]

Recipe for the Cinammon and Ginger almond biscuits. Sorry I am late posting it - got a bit sidetracked with my 60th birthday.


Ingredients:
3 room temperature Large egg whites
255g granulated sweetener of choice
315g ground almonds
1 tablespoon cinammon
a teaspoon of ground ginger
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
¼ teaspoon vinegar
¼ teaspoon of xanthan gum

Directions


Clean out a mixer bowl and wipe it with vinegar on a paper towel to thoroughly degrease it. Also wash the whisk balloons and wipe with vinegar. Do the same thing with a small bowl. Have a container to put the yellows into so you can use them for something else later.

Prepare a baking tray with a non-stick baking mat. If you have a standard oven you can prepare two baking trays to cook the biscuits all at once. I have a tiny halogen oven so I had to cook mine in two batches. The pictures show the first batch only.

Separate three eggs whites one at a time into the small bowl. Each egg white gets tipped into the mixer bowl after you separate it. This way if you get yellow into one of the egg whites you haven’t spoiled all of them.

Once you have the egg whites in the mixer bowl add the ½ teaspoon cream of tartar, the ¼ teaspoon of xanthan gum and the ¼ teaspoon of vinegar.

Weigh out into another bowl the 315g ground almonds/almond flour and the tablespoon of cinnamon and the ground ginger.
Into another bowl weigh out the 255g erythritol.

It will look as if you have a humungous amount of ingredients and there is no way they will mix with only three egg whites - but worry not it will all work out.

Now you have all the ingredients ready put all the packets and stuff away so you have a clear space to work in. You will also need a flat space to roll out the dough when you’ve made it and you’ll need a rolling pin. You could use the zipped silicone circles for rolling dough if you have them - but as long as your surfaces are cool this dough should roll okay.

Whisk the egg white mixture until it forms stiff peaks. Then using a silicone spoon you have wiped with vinegar fold in the sugar carefully.
Remove 4 tablespoons of the meringue mixture and put it in the fridge until you are ready for it.
Fold the almond flour/cinnamon mixture into the remaining meringue until it forms a dough.
Bring the dough together and then roll it until it is about a quarter of an inch thick.
Then cut it into star shapes using a star shaped cutter.
I only had a very small star cutter - about two inches across and I prefer the very small biscuits as these are very sweet and it is nice to have dainty little stars with around half a gram of carb per biscuit. If the dough stars stick to the cutter gently push it out with your fingers.
If you wet your fingers and the cutter it is less likely to stick.
If the stars come out slightly mangled you can use your hands to smooth and tidy them before placing them on a non-stick baking mat on a baking tray.


When you have filled your baking tray put a little bit of the meringue mixture you reserved onto each star before cooking them.
You can keep any left over dough in an airtight container in the fridge and the same for the meringue and make more biscuits the next day if you want to.


Bake them at 150C fan/160C conventional for 15-20 minutes until they look like the second picture.

Then fetch them out and let them cool on a rack. If they seem a bit soft on the bottom you can put them back in the oven at a low heat (70C) to dehydrate them for another half an hour or so. Use a clean small paint brush to brush edible lustre onto the cooked biscuits and I use a very small teaspoon to and use the brush again to encourage the edible stars onto the biscuits. Don’t try this under a powerful extractor fan!! The results can be ‘interesting’ don’t ask how I know!!
They harden up as they cool.

They are nicer once they have cooled down and the flavours develop. Straight out of the oven they are very very sweet but they settle down and are even better a day or so later. Store at room temperature in an airtight biscuit tin.

 

[Docb]

@NotWorriedAtAll - I think you have made an error in your ingredients list. 315g of cinnamon would make for a very interesting but probably totally inedible biscuit!

I will leave you to edit the post. I could try to do it having read the recipe but don't want to compound the error. 🙂

 

[mopinwil]

Recipe for the Cinammon and Ginger almond biscuits. Sorry I am late posting it - got a bit sidetracked with my 60th birthday.


Ingredients:
3 room temperature Large egg whites
255g granulated sweetener of choice
315g ground cinnamon
a teaspoon of ground ginger
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
¼ teaspoon vinegar
¼ teaspoon of xanthan gum

Directions


Clean out a mixer bowl and wipe it with vinegar on a paper towel to thoroughly degrease it. Also wash the whisk balloons and wipe with vinegar. Do the same thing with a small bowl. Have a container to put the yellows into so you can use them for something else later.

Prepare a baking tray with a non-stick baking mat. If you have a standard oven you can prepare two baking trays to cook the biscuits all at once. I have a tiny halogen oven so I had to cook mine in two batches. The pictures show the first batch only.

Separate three eggs whites one at a time into the small bowl. Each egg white gets tipped into the mixer bowl after you separate it. This way if you get yellow into one of the egg whites you haven’t spoiled all of them.

Once you have the egg whites in the mixer bowl add the ½ teaspoon cream of tartar, the ¼ teaspoon of xanthan gum and the ¼ teaspoon of vinegar.

Weigh out into another bowl the 315g ground almonds/almond flour and the tablespoon of cinnamon and the ground ginger.
Into another bowl weigh out the 255g erythritol.

It will look as if you have a humungous amount of ingredients and there is no way they will mix with only three egg whites - but worry not it will all work out.

Now you have all the ingredients ready put all the packets and stuff away so you have a clear space to work in. You will also need a flat space to roll out the dough when you’ve made it and you’ll need a rolling pin. You could use the zipped silicone circles for rolling dough if you have them - but as long as your surfaces are cool this dough should roll okay.

Whisk the egg white mixture until it forms stiff peaks. Then using a silicone spoon you have wiped with vinegar fold in the sugar carefully.
Remove 4 tablespoons of the meringue mixture and put it in the fridge until you are ready for it.
Fold the almond flour/cinnamon mixture into the remaining meringue until it forms a dough.
Bring the dough together and then roll it until it is about a quarter of an inch thick.
Then cut it into star shapes using a star shaped cutter.
I only had a very small star cutter - about two inches across and I prefer the very small biscuits as these are very sweet and it is nice to have dainty little stars with around half a gram of carb per biscuit. If the dough stars stick to the cutter gently push it out with your fingers.
If you wet your fingers and the cutter it is less likely to stick.
If the stars come out slightly mangled you can use your hands to smooth and tidy them before placing them on a non-stick baking mat on a baking tray.


When you have filled your baking tray put a little bit of the meringue mixture you reserved onto each star before cooking them.
You can keep any left over dough in an airtight container in the fridge and the same for the meringue and make more biscuits the next day if you want to.


Bake them at 150C fan/160C conventional for 15-20 minutes until they look like the second picture.

Then fetch them out and let them cool on a rack. If they seem a bit soft on the bottom you can put them back in the oven at a low heat (70C) to dehydrate them for another half an hour or so. Use a clean small paint brush to brush edible lustre onto the cooked biscuits and I use a very small teaspoon to and use the brush again to encourage the edible stars onto the biscuits. Don’t try this under a powerful extractor fan!! The results can be ‘interesting’ don’t ask how I know!!
They harden up as they cool.

They are nicer once they have cooled down and the flavours develop. Straight out of the oven they are very very sweet but they settle down and are even better a day or so later. Store at room temperature in an airtight biscuit tin.

Hello and thank you for posting. This looks interesting in spite of what I believe is a slight error regarding the cinnamon content. I will try these when I come off the Exante diet system. I am having success with that dieting system so far and I like being able to use real low carb foods as well as the lovely Exante range of meals and snacks. As I am a person who likes tasty food replacement meals that is the way I wish to go for the while. I have a further 9 stone to loose so I will probably be on the diet long-term. There are other branded powder slimming diets but in my opinion Exante are my favourites, especially for taste and as for the vitamins and minerals my nails are rock hard so something must be working because in all of my 73yrs nails have been brittle..

 

[NotWorriedAtAll]

@NotWorriedAtAll - I think you have made an error in your ingredients list. 315g of cinnamon would make for a very interesting but probably totally inedible biscuit!

I will leave you to edit the post. I could try to do it having read the recipe but don't want to compound the error. 🙂

Hello and thank you for posting. This looks interesting in spite of what I believe is a slight error regarding the cinnamon content. I will try these when I come off the Exante diet system. I am having success with that dieting system so far and I like being able to use real low carb foods as well as the lovely Exante range of meals and snacks. As I am a person who likes tasty food replacement meals that is the way I wish to go for the while. I have a further 9 stone to loose so I will probably be on the diet long-term. There are other branded powder slimming diets but in my opinion Exante are my favourites, especially for taste and as for the vitamins and minerals my nails are rock hard so something must be working because in all of my 73yrs nails have been brittle..

Phew - thanks for that!!!
Fixed now.
315g of ground almonds and a tablespoon of cinnamon!
That would have been interesting!!

I had a cut and paste error copying from my notes to the post!!

 

[mopinwil]

Phew - thanks for that!!!
Fixed now.
315g of ground almonds and a tablespoon of cinnamon!
That would have been interesting!!

I had a cut and paste error copying from my notes to the post!!

I do actually love cinnamon but not THAT much lol lol lol

 

[jill-mc]

Recipe for the Cinammon and Ginger almond biscuits. Sorry I am late posting it - got a bit sidetracked with my 60th birthday.


Ingredients:
3 room temperature Large egg whites
255g granulated sweetener of choice
315g ground almonds
1 tablespoon cinammon
a teaspoon of ground ginger
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
¼ teaspoon vinegar
¼ teaspoon of xanthan gum

Directions


Clean out a mixer bowl and wipe it with vinegar on a paper towel to thoroughly degrease it. Also wash the whisk balloons and wipe with vinegar. Do the same thing with a small bowl. Have a container to put the yellows into so you can use them for something else later.

Prepare a baking tray with a non-stick baking mat. If you have a standard oven you can prepare two baking trays to cook the biscuits all at once. I have a tiny halogen oven so I had to cook mine in two batches. The pictures show the first batch only.

Separate three eggs whites one at a time into the small bowl. Each egg white gets tipped into the mixer bowl after you separate it. This way if you get yellow into one of the egg whites you haven’t spoiled all of them.

Once you have the egg whites in the mixer bowl add the ½ teaspoon cream of tartar, the ¼ teaspoon of xanthan gum and the ¼ teaspoon of vinegar.

Weigh out into another bowl the 315g ground almonds/almond flour and the tablespoon of cinnamon and the ground ginger.
Into another bowl weigh out the 255g erythritol.

It will look as if you have a humungous amount of ingredients and there is no way they will mix with only three egg whites - but worry not it will all work out.

Now you have all the ingredients ready put all the packets and stuff away so you have a clear space to work in. You will also need a flat space to roll out the dough when you’ve made it and you’ll need a rolling pin. You could use the zipped silicone circles for rolling dough if you have them - but as long as your surfaces are cool this dough should roll okay.

Whisk the egg white mixture until it forms stiff peaks. Then using a silicone spoon you have wiped with vinegar fold in the sugar carefully.
Remove 4 tablespoons of the meringue mixture and put it in the fridge until you are ready for it.
Fold the almond flour/cinnamon mixture into the remaining meringue until it forms a dough.
Bring the dough together and then roll it until it is about a quarter of an inch thick.
Then cut it into star shapes using a star shaped cutter.
I only had a very small star cutter - about two inches across and I prefer the very small biscuits as these are very sweet and it is nice to have dainty little stars with around half a gram of carb per biscuit. If the dough stars stick to the cutter gently push it out with your fingers.
If you wet your fingers and the cutter it is less likely to stick.
If the stars come out slightly mangled you can use your hands to smooth and tidy them before placing them on a non-stick baking mat on a baking tray.


When you have filled your baking tray put a little bit of the meringue mixture you reserved onto each star before cooking them.
You can keep any left over dough in an airtight container in the fridge and the same for the meringue and make more biscuits the next day if you want to.


Bake them at 150C fan/160C conventional for 15-20 minutes until they look like the second picture.

Then fetch them out and let them cool on a rack. If they seem a bit soft on the bottom you can put them back in the oven at a low heat (70C) to dehydrate them for another half an hour or so. Use a clean small paint brush to brush edible lustre onto the cooked biscuits and I use a very small teaspoon to and use the brush again to encourage the edible stars onto the biscuits. Don’t try this under a powerful extractor fan!! The results can be ‘interesting’ don’t ask how I know!!
They harden up as they cool.

They are nicer once they have cooled down and the flavours develop. Straight out of the oven they are very very sweet but they settle down and are even better a day or so later. Store at room temperature in an airtight biscuit tin.

These look so yummy. Hope you had a nice great birthday!

 

[Perfect10]

@NotWorriedAtAll a very happy birthday
I am going to try these biscuits, I have everything except the cream of tartar so only this to buy. Does it matter what vinegar you use? I have a white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar and malt vinegar?

 

[NotWorriedAtAll]

@NotWorriedAtAll a very happy birthday
I am going to try these biscuits, I have everything except the cream of tartar so only this to buy. Does it matter what vinegar you use? I have a white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar and malt vinegar?

I used malt vinegar. I don't think it matters as you dry it off with a bit of kitchen roll but malt vinegar is the least likely to leave any strong aftertaste. Sorry I haven't replied earlier - I've been very focussed on my project. Thank you for your birthday wishes. If you made the biscuits I hope they turned out ok x

 

[NotWorriedAtAll]

I made a keto Battenberg cake!

It is a bit wonky because I was making it up as I went along just to see if it would work.
Next time I will take a bit more care over it and measure and weigh ingredients and make the sponges in an oven instead of microwave so they turn out more evenly. But taste and texture-wise - I am very pleased.

I used my microwave cake recipe and added beetroot juice to make the pink sponge. I made cranberry and strawberry jam in the microwave - just blitzed four strawberries and about twenty cranberries until they went into pulp and then sweetened it until the bitterness went away. Made marzipan using almonds and sweetener and then assembled and fridged overnight because I finished making it at ten at night.

It was very nice for breakfast with a cup of Yorkshire tea.

 

[NotWorriedAtAll]

More adventures in using my keto marzipan! Keto Stollen!!
I omitted raisins and other dried fruit and instead soaked frozen cherries and frozen cranberries in brandy for 24hours and didn't use many of them and made a dough using low carb ingredients and allspice and ground nutmeg and cinnamon and then shaped and baked and it worked very well.

Next experiment is to tackle Simnel Cake for a friend.

 

[Martin62]

I've just made some keto mince pies approx 4g carbs per pie, not too bad for my first ever bake.

 

[silentsquirrel]

I've just made some keto mince pies approx 4g carbs per pie, not too bad for my first ever bake.View attachment 19357

They look good! A recipe or indication of where to find it would be gratefully received. 🙂

 

[Martin62]

They look good! A recipe or indication of where to find it would be gratefully received. 🙂

Hi Silent Squirrel, I combined 2 recipes.
For the filling I used sugerfreelondoners recipe and for the pastry I used lowcarbkitchens one.
Both easy to find on Google.
I dried my own cranberries using my microwave a lot quicker than using the conventional oven.
Just had one with a dollop of clotted cream, delicious

 

[Kopiert]

Good morning

I am really interested in cooking for a low carb diet, particularly with Christmas coming up!

My area of confusion is when you say sweetener. What sweeteners do you recommend. When I was first diagnosed I used Stevia to transition away from sugar, but the tiniest amount made everything sort of sweet with an after taste - is that what you are referring to?


Nick

 

[mopinwil]

I use Erythritol because it doesn't cause blood sugar spikes or insulin response. It does not have calories or apparently any nasty side-effects.

Google it. I personally don't get an after-taste either.