Diabetic and Low Carb Keto Bread Substitute Experimenter
Hello all! This seems to be my week for joining forums; if two in a week a streak. It is for me! I decided to join because this was the only place online where I found people discussing the chemistry of bread making, sort of.
The short story about me is I'm an old man, diabetic, and have multiple health issues, like prostate cancer. (Doing well, thank you. Something I hope to eventually die with, but not of!) So far, three years and doing great.
My goal lately is to develop something low-carb to use in making sandwiches, that tastes good enough my wife will like it too. (It doesn't have to taste like "bread", just good!) I've been experimenting with potato flake starter. I've learned that I need some kind of flour, some kind of binder, something that resembles food for yeast and yeast. I haven't figured out the rest yet. I've tried many of the keto or low-carb recipes on the internet, and (sigh) this stuff is picky, or I suck at baking. Everyone uses cups, tbs and tsp stuff, and I prefer to measure weight and hope I'll get somewhere with it. This comes from my science background. I hope I will get better results eventually. My wife and I like to cook and love great food, she's the chef tonight!
Thanks for inviting me into your home! Oh, and I love to write! :-)
Have you tried searching for Keto bread that's made with almond flour? It won't be the same texture though. For gram conversions, I usually just stick to KingArthurbaking.com and follow their guidlines. You may even find a few recipes with almond flour. There is also raisin water ferment and CLAS. CLAS is a lactic acid ferment thing, Mariana on here does a lot with it.
Ha, I had to chuckle; we had a cat named Rowl! :-) Oh, OWL, sorry! :-( And here I was, wondering what a Suga Rowl was! lol
Yes, I've tried almost everything online, meaning I made them, and they didn't turn out, so I started experimenting on my own. I've made a reasonably decent Biscotti, an almost loaf of something a bit crumbly, and an attempt at hamburger buns using Almond flour and VWG, which ended up being a better meat substitute than bread, tasty, too! Competed well with my wife's best Tofu! LOL, I'd give myself a "C" for effort. I've also learned that it's expensive to experiment and time-consuming.
I use my starter for any recipe that calls for water, sometimes adding a bit of instant-rise yeast for help. I'd give it an "A" on taste but a Fail on texture. I thought VWG would be a godsend, but I will have to cut back on that. I haven't tried Coconut or Oat flour yet. I found one recipe on the forum that I will try. Her bread came out close, and she complained about the crust, but it looked reasonably good overall. Someone said she might have let it rise too long before baking (her holes were kind of big), and I'm sure the chewy crust came from too much VWG.
Another person on this forum mentioned making bread with a high-carb but low glycemic response. I'd have to be a judge on that. I may try it. But I will try to examine both recipes and see if I can make a crossover with the two that is both low on response but may have a better texture. I won't insist it has to have an absolute minimum of carbs. I think 5 or 6 carbs a slice would be acceptable. That's a happy middle between store-bought generic sugar-free bread and Keto low or no-carb bread.