Tag Archives: low carb bread

Breads, Recipes

Low Carb English Muffin


I’ve always loved a good English muffin and it is a “must have” in making Classic Eggs Benedict, but like all regular wheat breads, it isn’t low carb. After three years of doing without, I finally decided to try to adapt Alton Brown’s English Muffin recipe to low carb flours. They cooked up surprisingly easily and the taste is pretty darn good. Maybe not quite the standard English muffin, but very close and very much a yeast bread.

Alton’s English Muffins

Adapted for low carb by Rene
Yields: 8 muffins

Ingredients
1/3 cup Heavy Cream plus hot water to make one cup
1 tablespoon Sugar Substitute
1 teaspoon Salt
1 tablespoon Shortening
1 envelope Active Dry Yeast
1/8 th teaspoon Sugar or Sugar Substitute
1/3 cup warm Water
1 1/2 cup Carbquick baking mix or your favorite low carb baking mix
1/4 cup LC Foods pizza & bagel flour or other fine low carb flour
2 tablespoons Coconut Flour
2 tablespoons Oat Fiber (optional) – use more CarbQuick if you don’t use
Non-stick Vegetable Spray

Special equipment: electric griddle, 3-inch metal rings * See my note

In a bowl combine the powdered milk, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, shortening, and hot water, stir until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Let cool. In a separate bowl combine the yeast and 1/8 teaspoon of sugar in 1/3 cup of warm water and rest until yeast has dissolved. Add this to the dry milk mixture. Add the sifted flour and beat thoroughly with wooden spoon. Cover the bowl and let it rest in a warm spot for 30 minutes.

Preheat the griddle to 300 degrees F.

Add the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of salt to mixture and beat thoroughly. Place metal rings onto the griddle and coat lightly with vegetable spray. Using #20 ice cream scoop, place 2 scoops (not quite two tablespoons) into each ring and cover with a pot lid or cookie sheet and cook for 5 to 6 minutes.

English muffins rise in their rings on the griddle.

Remove the lid and flip rings using tongs. Cover with the lid and cook for another 5 to 6 minutes or until golden brown. Place on a cooling rack, remove rings and cool. Split with fork and serve.

Remove to cooling rack and remove rings.

* The electric griddle isn’t required, but it sure makes these easier to make. You can use a cast iron skillet or griddle on the stove, but it isn’t as easy to control the heat. Cook them about medium hot heat, but keep a close eye to make sure they don’t burn or cook too fast. You need at least 5 minutes per side to get them cooked all the way through.
Nutrition Info in one English Muffin
Calories: 130   Fat: 10.7 g   Net Carbs: 2.5 g   Protein: 5 g

With a decent muffin recipe in hand, it’s on to the Classic Eggs Benedict!

Originally POSTED BY RENE AVERETT AT 4/6/2013 10:00 AM

Breads, Breakfast & Brunch, Recipes

New Year Starts With A Favorite Breakfast

We are a few days into the New Year — Happy 2013! Let’s hope that it is a really great year for everyone and you enjoy good health, happiness and a bit of prosperity in the next 12 months. I am certainly hoping to have that continue for me.

A tradition for some of us from the south is to have Biscuits and Sausage Gravy for the first breakfast, but it doesn’t exactly scream low carb!  But it can be. This is a recipe that is adapted with just a few changes from the chef for Tova foods, the company that makes CarbQuick. It uses CarbQuick, but it can be made with other low carb flours. You may need to add egg to get the biscuit to rise if you use a flour like almond flour or coconut flour. Ideally, you could mix one of those with another low carb flour, such as Bob’s Red Mill baking mix, to balance it out. Of course, any changes you make in the recipe may change the carb and calorie count for this.

Sausage Gravy with Biscuits

Biscuits:
1 cup Carbquick or other low carb flour
1 tablespoons *Shortening
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 tablespoon Heavy Whipping Cream

Gravy:
1/2 pound Pork Sausage
2 tablespoons Carbquick or other low carb flour (you can also use 1 tablespoon of cornstarch, will change the carb count a little)
1/2 cup Heavy Cream
1/4 cup Coconut Milk (or unsweetened Almond milk)
1/4 cup Water
1/2 teaspoon Pepper
Salt to your preference (I use a dash since I don’t like things too salty)
1/2 teaspoon Poultry Seasoning
1/2 teaspoon Worchestershire sauce (optional)

Biscuits:

Preheat oven to 365 degrees F.

Mix flour and baking powder together and add a dash of salt. Cut shortening into flour until it is mixed into pea-sized clumps. Add whipping cream and a little water to make a thick dough that barely clings together.

Divide dough into quarters and shape into rounds, patting the tops down. Use just a little extra flour if the dough is too sticky to handle. Placed on a greased pan and bake for 6 to 8 minutes until the biscuits are golden brown.

Gravy:

In large skillet, over medium-high heat, cook and crumble sausage to lightly brown. Pour off fat from pan.

Sprinkle flour over sausage in skillet, stir to blend, add cream, milk. Worcestershire sauce and water to pan all at once.

Cook, stirring constantly over medium-high heat until thickened and bubbly. This may take up to 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve over hot baked biscuits. 1 biscuit and 1/4 of gravy is one serving.

Nutrition info: Calories: 458.6 Net Carbs: 3.8 g Protein: 12.4 g
POSTED BY RENE AVERETT AT 1/5/2013 1:44 PM

Breads, Recipes

Easy Low Carb Stuffing Bread

Thanksgiving a year ago, I tried a bread mix from LC Foods for my stuffing. It was good, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for in the flavor. So this year, I decided to try a variation based on one posted by Laura Dolson on About.com. I changed a few things and spread it out to bake and was thrilled with the result. Poultry seasoning in the batter added a great flavor. It would be fantastic as croutons or crumbled on top of a casserole in addition to making a delicious stuffing.

Easy Low-Carb Stuffing Bread

1 cup CarbQuick
1/2 cup Almond Meal
1/2 cup LC Flour (LC Flour or other low carb flour)
1/2 cup Flax Meal
1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
1 Tablespoon Poultry Seasoning
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) melted Butter
3 Eggs
1/3 cup Water
1/4 cup Buttermilk
2 teaspoons Sugar Substitute

Heat oven to 350 F.

Spray a jelly roll pan or use a silicone mat and spray that or use a rectangular baking stone with a light coating of baking spray.

Mix dry ingredient together. Mix the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix well with a spoon or a whisk. The batter will be thick. If it is too thick to spread, add a little water.

Spread over the pan or stone so that you have a flat rectangle about 1/2 inch thick. It may not completely fill the pan. Use the back of a large spoon to smooth and shape the batter. Wet the spoon back to help smooth it.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until top is lightly browned or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. This time may vary with ovens, so add an additional 5 minutes if it is browned how you would like it.

To use in a dressing, cut the bread into 1/2 cubes. When completely cool, spread the cubes out on a baking pan and put them in a 300 degree oven to dry more and toast a little around the edges. Remove and store in a paper bag until ready to use.

Nutrition Info (just bread) makes about 12-1/2 cup servings when used for stuffing:
Calories: 120 Net Carbs: 5.2 g Protein: 6.9 g


Stuffing bread with broth added and sauteed vegetables about to be mixed in. (I used onions, celery, small sweet peppers and baby spinach. This will work with any ingredients you prefer.)

POSTED BY RENE AVERETT AT 11/30/2012 9:12 PM

Breads, Recipes

Peanut Butter & Jam Surprise Muffin

Here’s an adapted to low carb muffin recipe that I probably saw originally some years ago although I don’t recall where. It’s certainly not a new concept, but the approach may be a little different and I didn’t follow any other recipe in creating it.

I used LC Foods strawberry jam in my recipe, but when I figured the nutrition, I used Smucker’s Sugar Free Jam, which you car purchase at almost any grocery store. Of course, you can substitute your favorite flavor sugar free jam in the recipe.

1/4 cup Peanut Flour or Almond Flour
1/4 cup Whey Protein Powder or 2 tablespoons Coconut Flour
1/2 cup Carbquick
2 Eggs
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Cinnamon, ground
1/4 cup Coconut Oil
1 tsp Vanilla Extract (omit if using vanilla whey powder)
1/2 tbsp Heavy Whipping Cream
1/4 cup JIF creamy Peanut Butter
3 tbsp LC Strawberry Jam or low carb jam of your choice

Preheat oven to 360 degrees F. Prepare six muffin cups with baking spray.

Mix peanut flour, Carbquick and protein powder together with baking powder, and cinnamon. Beat eggs, whipping cream and vanilla extract together, then stir in coconut (or peanut) oil and mix into flours. Combine until moist, but don’t over mix. If the mixture is too dry, add a little water until it is a droppable consistency.

Using 1/2 of the batter, fill each muffin cup about 1/3 full. Spoon a half teaspoon of peanut butter (see photo) into the middle of each muffin and top with a teaspoon of strawberry jam. Divide the remainder of the batter equally over the top of the filling mixture.


About 1/2 teaspoon of peanut butter.
  

Drop peanut butter on top of muffin batter… then add jam and spoon more batter on top.

Bake for about 20 minutes until the muffin is golden brown. Cool and serve. Makes 6 muffins.

Nutrition Information:
Per muffin (made with Smucker’s Jam):
Calories 147, Net Carbs: 5.2 g, Protein: 7 g

Originally POSTED BY RENE AVERETT AT 11/18/2012 1:21 PM

Breads, Recipes

Savory Sandwich Rounds

This is the second move for this recipe since I am now moving all of my site to WordPress. This recipe was from May, 2012. I’ve updated the recipe a little to reflect a change in the proportions of flour that I am using.

About a year ago, I decided to try a change to a low carb lifestyle and it’s been great. I’d lost about 30 pounds the previous year (2010), but it was mostly from a month long bout with kidney stones rather than a real diet. I managed to keep that weight off, but I wanted to lose more. Since February 2011, I’ve dropped an additional 72 pounds and I did it with a low carb diet. It’s that miraculous diet that allows you to eat things that other diets forbid. One of the tough parts of it is that bread it just about right out, along with potatoes, and other starches. But I’ve found substitutes for most things. I’ve found low carb tortillas and there is a great recipe for a breakfast muffin called Muffin In A Minute on the Atkins web site. And there are low carb breads, but they are pricey.

Over the past few months, I’ve started making my own easy egg bread rolls for sandwiches. These are tasty and while they aren’t a yeast bread, they are an acceptable substitute when it comes to a sandwich. This particular recipe, which is based on the Muffin In A Minute, is for a savory roll, which is great for any meat sandwich, including a hamburger. You can also make these as a sweeter roll for breakfast to replace a muffin or to toast. I use a silicon 4″ cake mold that has three molds in the cake and these are a perfect size. I bought mine at Amazon, but they are probably available in stores that carry baking molds. You don’t have to use these and you can make the dough a little stiffer and shape them or cook them in a 4″ souffle dish. You can also spread them into a 8×8 inch pan, then cut them into 4″ squares for a square sandwich roll.

About the flours used:

This recipe uses CarbQuik low carb baking mix, which I order on-line from Netrition.com, but is available from other places and might actually be in a health food store. You do not need to use the baking mix and can use just flax meal flour or a combination of flax meal and almond flours. It will change the color and texture of the rolls, depending on if you use golden flax meal or regular flax meal and if you add almond meal. Generally, I use Bob’s Red Mill (available at most grocery stores) because it is the lowest net carb count I’ve found for the meal and also a good price. NOW foods also has a low carb almond flour that is lower than Bob’s Red Mill.

Makes 3 rolls – about 1.5 carbs each

Savory Sandwich Rounds (Low Carb)

1/2 cup CarbQuik low carb baking mix
1/4 cup ground Flax meal flour
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon dried onion flakes, re-hydrated in about 1 tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon pepper, garlic and herb seasoning
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt (or regular sea salt)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 drop liquid sucralose or 1 packet of Splenda or equivalent product

Heat oven to 365 degrees. Mix the dry ingredients together, then add the egg, oil and liquid sweetner. Mix well making a thick, but spreadable dough. Spray 4″ round cake molds or pans (or use 4 inch souffle dishes) with cooking spray. If you don’t have the round, you can make the dough thicker by adding another tablespoon of flax meal and shaping them by hand, flattening the top by placing parchment or waxed paper over them and smoothing with the back of a knife or a rolling pin. Spoon 1/3 of the mixture into each of the cavities in the pan. Use a spoon back to spread the dough in the mold and smooth it to even thickness.

Bake for about 20 minutes until the roll is lightly brown and springs back when pressed. Let cool, then remove from pan and slice through the middle.

The roll can be sliced and toasted or warmed in the microwave.