Category Archives: Breads

Breads, Product Review, Recipes

Low Carb Bagels Are Great!

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First off, happy St. David’s Day! St. David is the patron saint of Wales and is honored by wearing a leek on March 1st. Personally, I prefer to eat my leeks, but the tradition of wearing the leek goes back to a troop of Welsh wearing them as a way to identify themselves to other Welsh during a battle. If you’d like to celebrate with a leek enhanced dish, try one of these tried and truly delicious recipes:

Chicken Leek Pot Pie
Creamy Cock-a-Leekie Soup
Asparagus Leek Cauli-Risotto
Leeks with Tomatoes and Bacon

Last week, I promised I would publish a recipe for honest-to-goodness yeast bagels that are made with LC Foods Pizza and Bagel Flour. The product review for the pizza I made with it is here. This flour honestly does rise and makes very good tasting pizza and bagels. The best part is not only do they taste delicious, but they are low carb! How cool is that? The only drawback with this recipe is that it makes six small bagels, not the size you might find at the grocery store where they have the double-sized versions. If you want a larger bagel, then make four bagels from the recipe and they are a very nice size.

If you’ve ever made bagels before, you know this is a two-step cooking process. First, you let the bagels rise after they are shaped, then you put them in boiling hot water for a short time to stop the rise and give them the chewiness that is so typical of a bagel. Second, you bake them until lightly browned. And to be thorough, you actually cook them a third time when you toast them to eat.

The LC Flour is higher priced than standard flour, but it is great for making these and worth the cost. You can purchase it from LC Foods or from Netrition.com. It is less expensive from Netrition, especially if you are ordering other low carb products at the same time since you will save on flat rate shipping.

LC Plain Bagels

3/4 cups Water, warm
1 package Quick Rising Yeast
1 tablespoon Sugar Substitute
1 teaspoon Salt
1 3/4 cups LC Foods Pizza & Bagel Flour
1/4 cup Low Carb Flour for bread board
1 Egg, beaten
2 quarts Water
1 Egg White (boxed are ok)

In a small glass bowl or cup, mix yeast, sugar substitute and warm water together and let stand 3 minutes. The yeast will soften and foam.

In a larger bowl, mix 1 cup of flour with the salt. Add the yeast mixture and beaten egg and stir until combined. Mix in the rest of the flour gradually until it is pulling together into a ball. If you want any add-ins in the bagels, such as cinnamon, raisins, craisins, or blueberries, add them before you add the second round of flour. (Remember to adjust the carbs for the add-ins.)

Put two tablespoons of low carb flour on a bread board or other surface and knead for about five minutes, adding additional low carb flour if needed until the dough is firm and elastic.

Wash out the mixing bowl, then use a paper towel or your fingers to spread about a teaspoon of olive oil around the bowl. Place dough in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise until double, about an hour.

Blueberry Bagels shaped and rising prior to dipping in the simmering hot water.

Punch down the dough and divide it into 6 evenly-sized balls. Allow the dough balls to rest while you bring the 2 quarts of water to boil.

Using your thumb, press through the middle of each ball of dough and pull it open about 2 inches, making a bagel shape.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place the shaped dough onto a cookie sheet and cover for 10 minutes. Lower heat under water to a hot simmer. Drop 2 or 3 bagels at a time into the water for about 45 seconds, turn and cook 45 seconds more. Drain on a paper towel and place on a greased baking sheet.

Brush tops with beaten egg white. Bake for 35 minutes, turning once for even browning. Bagels are done when they are golden brown and shiny.

Makes 6 bagels

Nutrition Info per bagel
Calories: 107 Fat:6.9 g Net Carbs: 2.3 g Protein: 7.7 g

Breads, Italian Inspired Recipes, Pork, Product Review

Product Review & Pizza Recipe

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LC-Pizza & Bagel Flour

I’ve been meaning to try LC Foods flour for making pizza, calzones, bagels, and English muffins for quite some time now. The only recipe actually included on the package is for pizza. I found a bagel recipe that sounded good and I tried that one before I tried to make a pizza. I can say that it works very well for the bagels. So this week, I mixed up the pizza dough and had a go of it.

First, this is a fine-textured flour that is excellent for baking these types of breads. LC Foods has severl milled flours in their online store that can be used for a variety of baking including pasta, cake, and bread, as well as the one for pizza. The flour is not as low priced as regular wheat flour, but it is a low carb flour and it’s worth the difference for a flour that is low in carbs and still produces a product that rises with yeast, tastes like bread, although not entirely like its wheat counterpart, but close enough that you can enjoy it. It’s also a sturdy pizza bread.

Note, this pizza flour is not gluten-free. It is made from a blend of wheat protein isolates, resistant wheat starches, flax seed meal and vital wheat gluten. You will need to add fast rising yeast, a bit of salt, a little sugar substitute, and olive oil to the mixture. The personal-sized pizza crust makes a 7 to 8 inch pizza round that will

For those who don’t want to make a pizza crust from scratch, LC Foods also sells a pre-made, partially cooked large pizza crust. You can add your favorite toppings and bake right at home and have a great pizza in no time.

So, on to the pizza dough and the toppings I used for this personal-sized pizza. For reference, each 1/4 cup of the flour is 2 net carbs and the whole small pizza used 3/4 cup of the flour. You can also shape the pizza dough into bread sticks, calzones, and strombolis. To make bagels or English muffins, you need to refer to a recipe for those breads as they have other ingredients and measurements. I will be putting up the basic bagel recipe next week.

I do have to say that of all the low carb flours I’ve used to try to make yeast breads, this flour has done the best job of rising, browning, and tasting very good. I give this flour my five cooking spoons of approval.

5-spoons

LC Pizza with Meatballs

This is made with LC Foods pizza and bagel flour. I bought pre-made poerk meatballs from Wal-Mart that are about 1 1/2 inch in diameter. Use a low carb pasta sauce. I used Mario Batalli’s Vodka sauce, which is one of the lowest I have found.

3/4 cup LC Pizza and Bagel Flour
1/4 teaspoon Salt
3/4 teaspoon rapid rise Yeast
1/2 teaspoon Sugar Substitute
1/4 cup warm Water
1 1/2 teaspoons Olive Oil

Toppings:
1/ cup Onions, chopped
3 mini Sweet Peppers
1 teaspoon minced Garlic
1/4 cup Pasta Sauce
6 medium-sized Pork Meatballs
1/2 cup Mozarella Cheese
2 tablespoons Parmesan Romano Cheese

In a medium bowl, add pizza flour, salt, yeast and sugar substitute and mix together. Add the water and olive oil and stir it together until combined and it begins to form a ball. Use your hands to knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic. Clean the bowl, dry and lightly oil. Put the dough in the bowl and put in a warm place to rise. Cover with a plate. Allow it rise 30 to 40 minutes until the dough doubles.

Lightly oil a pizza pan or pizza stone. Preheat oven to 425 degrees (F.)

Pull and stretch the dough into a circle and shape with your fingers until you have about a 7 to 8 inch round. Put on the pizza pan and bake for 5 minutes to get a partial bake on it.

Meanwhile, put a teaspoon of oil into a skillet and sauté the onions and peppers until just tender, then add garlic to the mix. Remove to a bowl. Cut the meatballs in half and if not already cooked, brown them in the skillet until they are almost done.

Spread the pizza sauce on the crust, then spread the vegetables evenly. Put the meatball halves even around the pizza and sprinkle mozzarella cheese on top, then the Parmesan Romano cheese over the top of that.

Bake for 10 more minutes until the cheese is melted and slightly browned. Let cool for a few minutes to set, then cut into pieces and serve.

Makes 2 to 4 servings, depending on how hungry you are.

Nutrition Information per one-half pizza:
Calories: 404 Fat: 21.3 g Net Carbs: 10.4 g Protein: 14.7 g

Breads, Desserts, Product Review

Product Review: Dixie Carb Counters Applesauce Snackin’ Cake Mix

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Dixie Carb Counter Applesauce Cake Mix.

This past weekend, I tried out Dixie Carb Counters Applesauce Snackin’ Cake Mix (trademarked by DCC), which is one of several snacking cakes that they make.  Generally, I like the baking products from DCC, so I was eager to try this one.

Making the cake is super simple, you just need to add a few ingredients to the two packages of mix that are supplied.

To packet #1, you need to add 4 large eggs, 1/3 cup coconut oil or other oil and 2/3 cup water to make the cake.  Packet #2 is sugar seasoning for the frosting to which you add 8 ounces of cream cheese and 1/4 cup water.  Pretty easy.

You just mix the cake ingredients in a bowl, add the included cup of unsweetened apple sauce, mix well and put it in a greased or sprayed with baking spray 8-inch square pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes and you have a lovely, moist cake.  Let it cool, then combine the ingredients from packet #2 to the cream cheese and water and beat until creamy and spread it over the cake.

Applesauce cake without the icing.

The cake makes 9 servings and each serving is 2 net carbs.  You can add in nuts and/or raisins if you like, but they do increase the carb count per serving.  Adding just the nuts brings it up to about 2.5 net carbs, but adding 1/2 cup raisins will add about 2.5 net carbs, so a total of 4.5 net carbs for the raisins alone.  If you want to go that route, I’d suggest using reduced-sugar craisins instead.

The cake has a lovely texture and is very moist and look at that nice layer of cream cheese icing.

After the icing was on the cake, it was time for the taste test.  Both PK and I tried a piece and agreed that the texture was very nice and it was moist.  But we didn’t feel that the apple taste was very strong, so it could have used more of that flavor.  Still with the cream cheese icing, it was a good treat.  I have made better from-scratch cakes, so I don’t think that I’m likely to buy this one again.  If I did, I think it could be improved by adding one packet of sugar-free Apple Cider mix and a little more cinnamon. I would also likely add 1 tablespoon of Vanilla Whey Protein Powder which adds taste as well as protein.

I do have two other packets of snacking cakes that I will be trying in the next few weeks, so I’ll let you know how those stack up.

Nutrition information per one slice of the cake
Calories: 218  Total Fat 0  Carbohydrates: 6 g Fiber: 4 g  NC: 2 g

On a scale of one to five, for flavor I give this cake four spoons.  Good, but not great.

4-spoons

This mix is available by mail from Dixie Carb Counters website or from Netrition.com.

Disclaimer: I have not received any promotional items to review and no one from any of the companies whose products I review have asked me to do so. I have purchased the product and am giving my honest opinion about it. Should any company send me a product to try, I will state it up front and will still give my honest opinion.

Breads, Product Review

Product Review: Dixie Carb Counters One Step Homemade White Bread

Dixie Carb Counters White Bread

Right off, I’m going to say that this is hands-down the best low carb white bread I’ve had so far. To be fair, I haven’t tried all the options that are out there, but the price and taste on this bread are excellent and I plan to buy it again and again.

This is a mix, so you need to add eggs, butter, and water to it, but that’s about it. You have the option to make it with whole eggs, 5 of them, or the equivalent amount of egg whites or a combination. If you use all eggs, as I did, then your bread is golden color. If you use only egg whites, the bread will be a white bread. As soon as I mixed in the liquid ingredients, the bread started to puff up in the bowl, meaning it was rising. I put it in a standard 9×5-inch loaf pan and popped it into the oven at the designated temperature. The bread rose beautifully and was a deep golden brown when I pulled it from the oven. I immediately cut off an end piece, buttered it, and savored the taste of this bread. It’s terrific!

It’s not quite like a yeast bread, but the flavor is excellent, the texture is perfect and it’s study enough to hold up to sandwiches and peanut butter and jam. (See photo below.) Best of all, it’s only 2 net carbs per slice when divided into 24 slices. It’s a little more if you want thicker bread. I see no reason you couldn’t add a little sugar substitute, cinnamon and reduced sugar craisins to the batter to make this a a low carb craisin loaf if you’d like or omit the craisins and just add the sugar substitute and cinnamon to make cinnamon bread. I’m thinking you could even divide this into two dozen cupcake molds and make small rolls. Just cook them between 10 and 15 minutes until they are done. I definitely plan to experiment with this bread, so check back on my blog to see what ways I can use it successfully.

At $7.79 from Netrition.com a pack to make one loaf, ($9.99 from Dixie direct) it may seem a little pricey, but to get a really good tasting loaf of low carb bread, it isn’t that bad. You can freeze it in serving portions so you don’t waste any of the bread. I’ve previously made and reviewed their Rye Bread and Multi-grain & Flax Bread Mixes and they are also excellent when it comes to taste and texture, but for white bread lovers, this is the one. It is worth the money and it’s easy to make.

So this bread definitely gets five cooking spoons from me and from my roomie. We both indulged on peanut butter and low carb jam toast this Christmas morning.

5-spoons

Disclaimer: I have not received any promotional items to review and no one from any of the companies whose products I review have asked me to do so. I have purchased the product and am giving my honest opinion about it. Should any company send me a product to try, I will state it up front and will still give my honest opinion.

Breads, Breakfast & Brunch, Recipes

Biscuit Based Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

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SONY DSC
Interior at Tian Sing Restaurant in San Francisco.

I missed posting last week, although I did pop a recipe in over the previous weekend. I went to San Francisco for a few days to see the incredible Josh Groban in concert at the Masonic Theater. It was the first time I’ve had the pleasure of hearing him sing in live performance and it was a wonderful evening. Getting a cab back to the hotel was not so great, but that’s the city for you. While my roomie and I were there we went to a really good Chinese Restaurant near the hotel. Wonderful food and if you’re in San Francisco I highly recommend Tian Sing. In fact, I wrote a review about the experience for the Chinese Quest blog. You can read it here.

It’s November and I’m still on a pumpkin kick because it’s that time of year and pumpkin is really more versatile than you might have imagined. A couple of months ago I posted reviews for a couple of low carb cinnamon roll mixes and I said then that I was going to try making one from scratch. As I was making low carb biscuits the other day, I figured out how I would make the biscuit version of cinnamon rolls and since it is pumpkin season, I added some puree to the dough. They are delicious. This recipe is entirely my own concoction so do let me know how you like it if you try it.

Pumpkin Biscuit Cinnamon Rolls

1 cup Low Carb Flour
2 tablespoons Shortening
1 tablespoon Sugar Substitute
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 tablespoon Ricotta Cheese
3 tablespoons Pumpkin Puree
2 tablespoons Vanilla Whey Powder
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon

2 tablespoon Butter, softened
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Pumpkin Pie Spice
2 tablespoons Brown Sugar Substitute
1 tablespoon Sugar-Free Maple Syrup
1/4 cup Pecans, chopped

Preheat oven to 375 degrees (F.)

Prepare topping:   In a bowl, place butter, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, brown sugar substitute and maple syrup and mix together to form a paste.

Mix the biscuit dough: Put flour, protein powder, baking powder, baking soda, and sugar in a bowl and cut in the shortening until tiny crumbs form. Add the vanilla extract, ricotta cheese, pumpkin and cinnamon. Add 1 tablespoon cold water and mix until the mixture forms a stiff dough. If necessary, add more water a little at a time. The dough should be stiff and not too sticky.

Roll out biscuit dough into a rectangle about 6″ x 8″.

Spray a sheet of waxed paper with baking spray and turn the dough onto the paper. Pat into a rectangle about 6″x 8″ and about 1/2 inch thick. Spread the topping over the rolls evenly, going to the edge on all sides except for about 1/2 inch on one short side. Sprinkle the pecans on top evenly.

Spread filling almost to the edge on all sides, leaving 1/2″ on the short side.

 

Using the wax paper to lift, roll the dough from the short side with toppings and finish with the opposite side with no topping. Seal the dough where it meets and place the roll seam side down. Cut the roll into 6 rolls. Place on a sprayed baking pan and bake for 18 to 20 minutes.

Rolls in oiled pan and ready to bake.

While dough bakes, make an icing with 1/2 cup Powdered Sugar Substitute, 1 tablespoon softened Butter and enough water to make a spreadable icing.

Let rolls cool for a few minutes, then spread with the icing and serve. Makes 6 rolls.

Nutrition Information per roll:
Calories:176 Fat: 15.2 g Net Carbs: 2.5 g Protein: 6.3 g