Baking with Almond Flour

kawmek

New member
I need some tips for baking with Almond Flour. My cakes although very tasty are not very light and fluffy. I am allergic to eggs so I can't use baking powder or cream of tartar. I can use Xanthum gum or Baking Soda. Do you have any suggestions?
 

Jackye

Administrator
Staff member
Hi, Kawmek. Welcome to Low Carb Forum! Glad to have you here.

Eggs, baking powder, and cream of tartar are the best ways to lighten up almond flour, so having that egg restriction makes it a bit harder to get that lightness and fluffiness that makes our desserts have a nice texture.

You say you can use baking soda, so that is the first thing I would do is add some to your almond flour to help it get lighter. Another option is to mix in some lighter flour such as coconut flour or tapioca flour are both going to help make it lighter. You can also try adding a little extra moisture as almond flour can be a bit dry.

Let me know if these tips helped you out!
 

kawmek

New member
Hi, Kawmek. Welcome to Low Carb Forum! Glad to have you here.

Eggs, baking powder, and cream of tartar are the best ways to lighten up almond flour, so having that egg restriction makes it a bit harder to get that lightness and fluffiness that makes our desserts have a nice texture.

You say you can use baking soda, so that is the first thing I would do is add some to your almond flour to help it get lighter. Another option is to mix in some lighter flour such as coconut flour or tapioca flour are both going to help make it lighter. You can also try adding a little extra moisture as almond flour can be a bit dry.

Let me know if these tips helped you out!
Hi, Kawmek. Welcome to Low Carb Forum! Glad to have you here.

Eggs, baking powder, and cream of tartar are the best ways to lighten up almond flour, so having that egg restriction makes it a bit harder to get that lightness and fluffiness that makes our desserts have a nice texture.

You say you can use baking soda, so that is the first thing I would do is add some to your almond flour to help it get lighter. Another option is to mix in some lighter flour such as coconut flour or tapioca flour are both going to help make it lighter. You can also try adding a little extra moisture as almond flour can be a bit dry.

Let me know if these tips helped you out!
Thanks, I will try the flour ideas and get back with you.
 

KickitOut

New member
I used unsweetened apple sauce and 2 tablespoons of honey instead of sugar in a cookie recipe and it have the recipe plenty of sweetness without the sugars. Would this be a good keto option .
 

Jackye

Administrator
Staff member
The honey and apple sauce both have sugar, so I would not immediately think of either of these for a keto diet. It would depend on the amount you used for each cookie. Also, I assume your cookies were made with almond flour, not 1/2 almond and 1/2 wheat flour.

You didn't list the amounts, so I searched for a recipe to get approximate amounts.

Two tablespoons of honey add 34 carbohydrates to your recipe.
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce adds 10 net carbs, or 18 net carbs for sweetened
2 cups of almond flour has 24 net carbs

With those assumptions, your recipe has roughly 76 net carbs in total. If you made 30 cookies out of it, that would get you to under 3 carbs per cookie.

If you will share your exact ingredients and the number of cookies you typically get from your recipe, I'll be glad to figure out the number of carbs per cookie to see if it is a good fit for a keto diet.
 

kawmek

New member
Thanks for the suggestion. here are some ingredients for some cookies I make.
1 /1/2 sticks butter
2/3 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup of almond flour
1 cup of instant oatmeal
4 ounces of unsweetened apple sauce
2 tablesp honey
2 tablespoons almond milk unsweetened
3/4 cup of nestles chocolate chips/milk chocolate
1/2 teasp Cinnamon
1/4/ teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup of pecans
if you want to analyze it for me that would be great.
 

Jackye

Administrator
Staff member
Here are some tips to help make it a little bit more keto.

Remove the cup of instant oatmeal (30 net carbs) and replace it with 1 cup of pecan flour (5.4 net carbs). Doing this you will have your pecan flavor, so you can also remove the 1/2 cup of pecans, which would remove another 2.1 net carbs.

Your applesauce adds 10 net carbs if you use Musselman's

Your honey is 34 g net carbs. You can replace it with sugar to drop it to 25.2 g net carbs. Even better would be to use a liquid artificial sweetener such as Stevia-based SweetLeaf sweet drops Stevia Clear. 30 drops of it will replace your 34 g carbs of honey with 0 g carbs.

The 2 Tbsp of unsweetened almond milk the carbs are too negligible to add.

The chocolate chips. Wow - so many carbs. They have 108 g carbs. You can replace those with 3/4 cup of a much-lower sugar chocolate, such as Pascha 85% dark chocolate chips, and drop it down to 60 g carbs, or go for the Pascha 100% cacao chocolate chips for 24 g carbs, but it will have a bit of a bitter taste. You might even be able to drop the amount of chips down to 1/2 cup instead of 3/4 cup to get the same chocolate richness as it is all chocolate, instead of 53% chocolate in your nestle chocolate chips. Use your best judgement.

The cinnamon and nutmeg are not adding much. The cinnamon adds about 0.5 net carbs, and the nutmeg adds about 0.6 net carbs, so about 1 carb for both combined.

How many cookies do you make with the recipe?
 

kawmek

New member
The recipe makes approximately 30 cookies. So, Wow, I was making a delicious carb nightmare. I think I will try your changes to see how these turn out. When I do I will get back to you on the results and if the taste changes.
Thanks,
 

Jackye

Administrator
Staff member
Wow, kawmek. You are right about it being a carb nightmare. I forgot to mention the a.p. flour. Must have been my mind just blanking it out as it was actual wheat flour. Replace it with 1/2 almond and 1/2 pecan flour.

So, here are the results. The carbs per cookie of your original recipe, and the carbs per cookie in the modified recipe. I hope you like the results when you make the changes.

Original IngredientNet CarbsReplacement IngredientNet Carbs
1 1/2 sticks butter0N/A0
2/3 cup all purpose flour611/3 cup almond flour +
1/3 cup pecan flour
6.2
2/3 cup almond flour7N/A7
1 cup of instant oatmeal301 cup pecan flour5.4
4 oz unsweetened apple sauce102 flax eggs0
2 Tbsp honey3416 drops Stevia Clear 0
2 Tbsp unsweet almond milk0N/A0
3/4 cup nestles milk chocolate chips1081/2 cup 100% cacao chips
OR
1/2 cup 85% chocolate chips
16

40
1/2 tsp cinnamon0.5N/A0.5
1/4 tsp nutmeg0.6N/A0.6
1/2 tsp baking soda0N/A0
1/2 cup pecans2.1Pecan flour (above)0
Total Carbs253.235.7 w/100% choco chips
or
59.7 w/85% choco chips
Carbs per cookie8.441.19 w/100% choco chips
or
1.99 w/85% choco chips
 
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