Buttoni’s Low-Carb Bake Mix

I’m so pleased to share a low-carb bake mix I’ve put together.  It only has 4.83 net carbs per ¼ cup of mix!  That’s fewer carbs than my Einkorn Bake Mix!  Regular Pioneer Bake Mix has 25 net carbs per ¼ cup; Bisquick has 27 net carbs per 1/3 c. (or about the same as Pioneer); Carbalose Flour has 4.8 net carbs per ¼ c.; Carbquik has only 2 net carbs per 1/3 c. but has a funny background taste to me, even their new and improved product.  So the difficulty when chosing ingredients based on flavor and carb count is indeed very delicate balance.

My inspirational recipe was a low-carb flour mix I saw over on Pam’s Low Carb and Delicious blog (she links to the mix inside the bread recipe).  Hers has 18 NC per 1/2 cup; mine has 9.66 NC per 1/2 cup.  So a nice carb drop, don’t you think?  But isn’t her bread photo a thing of beauty? My goodness, the rise on that loaf in the pic!  I plan on trying her bread soon, but with her original flour mix recipe, nothing tweaked, the first time I bake it.  Then I’ll turn around and bake it again with my new bake mix so I can readily compare the two loaves.  🙂

I modified considerably both what ingredients I chose to use for my mix as well as the amounts of those ingredients.  I have also added several additional ingredients to her original recipe.  The final bake mix has produced two baked items for me already that I am quite pleased with:  a 2-serving vanilla microwave quick cake

Vanilla Microwave Cake

and an oven-baked Blueberry-Lemon Snack Cake (I’ll be posting that recipe soon).

Blueberry-Lemon Snack Cake

Both the hubs and I found them delicious, with a very smooth texture.  Best of all, neither had a funny taste that many low-carb breads have.  My next tests will be in my Fluffy Pancakes recipe and I’ll try it in my fav RWS Biscuits recipe. After those, I’ll be trying this mix to make a pie crust eventually, perhaps for my Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie.  Then I’ll know this mix is a keeper.

I think this mix is going to prove to be a good one, so stay tuned for me to be posting new recipes I use it in successfully.  This recipe makes a big batch of nearly 11 cups of mix, so you might want to make up just 1/2 this recipe and play around with the mix in 1 or 2 of your favorite, tested recipes and see  what you think.  I would love your feedback/findings in the comments section below.

INGREDIENTS:

4 c. almond flour

1 c. oat flour (I grind mine from rolled oats)

½ c. oat fiber

½ c. Einkorn Flour

1 c. vital wheat gluten

2 c. Carbalose Flour

2 c. unflavored whey protein isolate

1 T. glucomannan powder

4 tsp. baking powder

DIRECTIONS:    If grinding your own oat flour (my 2 local grocers don’t carry oat flour that is pre-ground), do this step first, letting your food processor or blender run a pretty long time for the finest grind possible.  This will lead to better texture in your final baked goods. When you have 1 cup of oat flour ground, place in large mixing bowl.  Measure all other ingredients into the bowl.  Stir well.  Then stir well at least 4 more times!  You want the ingredients uniformly mixed.  Spoon mix into lidded container and store in your pantry for use whenever you want to bake.  Since there is no fat or sweet item in this, you will, of course, have to add butter/oil/fat and and naturally, sweetener if making a dessert recipe.  Eggs and possibly cream/liquid will be needed for binding and moisture to achieve the correct batter thickness.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:  Makes about 11 cups bake mix.

1 cup mix: 443 cals, 24.9g fat, 33.78g carbs, 14.44g fiber, 19.34g NET CARBS, 34.4g protein, 223 mg sodium

¼ cup mix: 110 cals, 6.22g fat, 8.44g carbs, 3.61g fiber, 4.83g NET CARBS, 8.61g protein, 55.7 mg sodium

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Einkorn Low-Carb Bake Mix

This is a low-carb complete baking mix similar to Bisquick and CarbQuik, which includes leavening and shortening.  I have added a small amount of ground Einkorn wheat for flavor and texture benefits.  Einkorn is one of the oldest forms of wheat that has not been hybridized or genetically modified.  Einkorn is said to have less of a detrimental effect on blood glucose levels and the gut than modern wheat.  Modern wheat is partially to blame for the obesity problem we see in America today.   I make no promises regarding performance of this bake mix other than recipes I test and actually post.  I’m learning how to use this mix as I experiment with it.    I will always post tested recipes in the Einkorn Flour Experiments category of my recipe index.  The word Einkorn will always appear as the first word in the recipe name so the recipe will not be confused with it’s non-Einkorn cousin.

I’ve been experimenting for several months with the flour and am really liking the results.  As I said, mostly I have just been adding up to 1/2c. to my already tested low-carb recipes.   To date, I have not exchanged this mix 1 cup for 1 cup in a recipe.

If you type Einkorn into the search box, the site will bring up the recipes I’ve tested with this flour and now this bake mix.  Or you can just click the Einkorn category in the recipe index.

PRODUCT INFORMATION

EINKORN FLOUR – ¼ CUP

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

This bake mix has evolved from my personal experience with low-carb baking ingredients, how they tend to act in the oven and what ratios they seem to like to co-exist in to produce tasty baked goods.  I think I finally have the ratios about right.  This bake mix produced a very nice vanilla cake that serves 2 people.  It was moist, tasty, spongy and somewhere between a commercial box mix cake and a pound cake in texture.  This cake makes lovely Strawberry Shortcake.  I can see many uses for this 2-serving treat.  🙂    The texture is quite smooth, too.  Click here to see the recipe:  Individual (2-serving) Vanilla Cake .

Einkorn Individual Vanilla Cake [shown is 1½ recipes of this cake.  Cake on the left is 1 recipe.

This is a very large recipe of bake mix and you may prefer to make only a half batch to start out with if you want to experiment with it.  You SHOULD be able to use this like Bisquick or Carbquick in recipes.  You should also be able to replace the flour+leavening+shortening in your regular flour recipes successfully with this mix but you must realize you are experimenting.

I would highly recommend perhaps making half or quarter recipe of the mix to start out.  Trial it in a half recipe of your favorite muffins, or just a few donuts or half a cake recipe so fewer ingredients will be wasted if the test is a fail.  Feel free to post links to pictures of your experiments with this mix in the comment section.  We’d all love to learn from your experiences.  🙂

MIX INGREDIENTS:  (I recommend making NO SUBSTITUTIONS)

5 c. almond flour

2 c. plain whey protein powder (I use NOW brand)

1 c. Einkorn flour

1 c. oat flour  (ground from 1¼ c. rolled oats unless you can buy it pre-ground)

¼ c. oat fiber

1 tsp. glucomannan powder

3 T. baking powder

2 tsp. cream of tartar

2 tsp. salt

1½ c. palm shortening (I order at Tropical Traditions)

DIRECTIONS:  Grind the oats into flour in your food processor or blender as fine as you can get it.  Place the oat flour into a large mixing bowl. Measure out all remaining dry ingredients and stir well.  Using a fork or pastry cutter, cut the shortening into the mixture until it resembles coarse cornmeal.  Place in a lidded container.  Can be stored on the counter safely as palm shortening is very stable at room temperature and has a very long shelf life.  If you decide to store in the refrigerator, be aware the shortening will firm up and cause the mix to clump a bit.  So you need to set it out, bring to room temperature and re-work with a fork in a bowl to evenly distribute shortening clumps before attempting to measure for use in recipes.

BAKE MIX NUTRITIONAL INFO:     Makes 11 cups of mix.  ½ cup mix contains:

338 calories, 28.2 g  fat, 15.99 g  carbs, 4.6 g fiber, 11.39 g  NET CARBS, 14.5 g  protein, 170 mg sodium

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