Yes, it is a problem, and yes, measuring by weight would be better. European recipes now do this, whereas American custom still clings to the older way of doing it. And despite the problems, it’s still better than the real old way, which was to say such things as “Butter the size of an egg.”
If you read an American cookbook, such as The Joy of Cooking, it will go into great detail about how to sift flour in order to measure the right amount. Fortunately, there aren’t that many recipes where such things need to be absolutely precise. (Just enough to really mess you up, if you aren’t careful, lol!)
Hungarian recipes says “the size of a walnut”… Similarly useful.
But it’s still something. ONE zucchini or carrot or apple, I am always completely lost when I face such recipes as they tend to vary in size greatly… Even if I try to think of an average one, it’s quite hard. And if we make a carrot cake, it matters if we have a 80g or a 250g carrot and I can imagine both are medium sized for certain people. Okay, maybe a carrot cake isn’t very keto but I made and ate some on keto without problems Zucchini then, that’s low-carb. But many keto recipes are quite carby, for people who can eat a tiny amount… Like all the pumpkin recipes. I don’t even go near pumpkin on keto…
But baking is tricky anyway. Even if we measure everything in grams, different ingredients (the same kind but different) behaves differently. I think of higher-carb things again… It’s known white wheat flours (every info we find is the same, at that) take up different amount of liquid. The same with potatoes, some are more dry than the others. The same with certain fruits - and what if one is sweet and the other is sour, we need to change the amount of sweetener (or not, I probably wouldn’t care :D)… I always found baking quite hard while cooking came almost instinctively, I just needed a recipe, not much practice. Baking is mysterious. I mix things and can’t have a very good idea what will be the result after baking…
You are correct. I prefer to weigh my ingredients in grams. I never trust the nutritional info either. When I make something that has almond flour and coconut flour, those carbs add up quick. It’s incredible how someone can make a cake and claim it only has 2 carbs.
I do a lot of Keto baking. I have found that the combination of almond, coconut flour, and whey protein powder make for a very light texture. Also I have found that using egg whites rather than whole eggs will lighten the texture. I don’t do a lot of cakes but I make muffins all the time.
Shinita, I’m curious about what type of flour might you use if you were to bake. I know you don’t live in the US. I’m always interested what other people use based on location.
I hear you on ingredients used in cooking. I’m the same kind of cook. I add what sounds good to me in the quantity I might have available or want to eat. It does make me suspicious of recipe creators for baked items (cakes, cookies, etc) if they are from the US and don’t have an established following. I remember when I first started baking low carb how finicky some of those recipes were for me. At least now that I have some experience under my belt I can question in my mind if the recipe makes sense.
My mother was not a good baker, but an excellent cook (meals not desserts). She used to measure her ingredients for cookies with a tea cup. Her cookies were not very good.
I agree. Sometimes it’s helpful to plug my own brands of ingredients into Carb Manager to see the exact carb amount.
For me, measuring everything in grams/ml is so much easier. I just set my bowl on the scale, add the ingredient, tare, add next ingredient. Super easy peasy and clean up is minimal.
Has anyone tried lupin flour? If so what is your opinion? I ordered some and it won’t be here for about a week. It looks like it has to be cut with almond flour for baking. I’m hoping to be able to use it in place of coconut flour which is ramping up my carb count.
Well since I flirt with carnivore, my favorite “flour” is egg Hard-boiled egg yolks, more specifically, it takes away moisture and there is no such thing as a too eggy dish, IMO… Fine, a dough need a little bit of something else too… I almost never bake for myself, I got bored of cakes on keto, I ate so much! They were useful and all the carbs I ate (vegetables, mostly) kept my serious sweeth tooth around as well.
But I have some oily seed flours I still use occasionally (walnut flour, coconut flour, both in very tiny amounts as they makes everything very bad for me if they are too much. all the recipes using lots of coconut flour are awful to me, bad texture, bad taste). Fiber and chia, too. My high-carber SO’s breakfast cake has ground poppy seed as flour, that’s a delicious one but the cake requires very much poppy seeds, 30g per egg and a bit poppy seed flour (I mean, the less fatty and less tasty thing, not ground seeds) as well. It’s good for him as he needs his calories in a smallish volume. I need my protein sources and barely anything else so my own cakes are very different. And under construction, I am so okay without cakes that I rarely experiment with my best and simplest, “egg yolks and something else” cakes. But they end up very good about every time. In the beginning I used 10g walnut per egg yolk (walnut is my favorite “flour”, hands down as it’s the tastiest ever… walnut flour is way worse but well, it absorbs more liquid and it’s still nice for this kind of cake. egg yolks are super tasty, it’s very hard to go wrong)… 5g walnut flour works too but if I add egg yolks as “flour”, I surely won’t need as much… But I am fine, I don’t actually need to make some carnivore cake, I don’t need it. And if I fancy something, I just eat it, it’s fine, I don’t need it to be carnivore or keto or something… But I like experimenting, it’s fun. And the lower I can keep my carb intake when I do want some cake, the better. Without sacrificing taste, of course. But that is very, very individual and our taste may change too… I never use flax seeds (or flax seed flour) anymore (except when I bake for my SO) and I used it a lot years ago. It made a nice crunchy wafer together with walnuts… Too bad it was really good only with honey, not like it was a problem for me on low-carb…
It’s a nostalgic topic for me. I changed SO much.
My attitude limits me, I only can make sponge cake like, very eggy cakes. I actually love crunchy biscuits but never managed to make them. They always ended up becoming soft or too dry and not tasty or something. And now I don’t think I will bother but we will see. My egg yolk thing actually becomes a tad crunchy if I bake it for longer… It’s sponge cake-y normally, very fluffy, I use sodium bicarbonate as the yolks can’t lift the cake without the whites.
We have zillion options here in Hungary as well (carby paleo flours too as paleo is the big thing here, not keto) so people use almond flour here too. But I have a limit, I simply don’t pay so much for something that isn’t particularly awesome (I tried it out once. nice but not special enough) when I could buy some proper and very, very tasty food with that money.
Of course. I can’t imagine to do differently. Sometimes I wonder, how people do it with cups? They put everything in a cup? Dry things, well fine. But then they put cream and butter in it? They need to wash more dishes and I so don’t want that… While there are our trusted kitchen scale that works the job just fine… No container->cup->bowl is needed…
But it’s usually for a tiny amount… If not, they count wrong.
A tiny, flavorful, eggy, “just enough after a big lunch” cake may have only 2g net carbs but coconut flour makes it not very probable…
I have some on hand and used it to make some tortillas from Serious Keto site
Honestly the amount used was so small I would not have ordered it just for this recipe. The tortillas were tasty, and he is very particular about his recipes. There is another site that used a lot of Lupin flour, but I can’t quite trust her recipes. There was a Lupin flour recipe for yeasted bread where the instructions say to bake for approximately 17 Minutes. ??? Any other yeasted bread recipe similar ingredients has a bake time of 45 minutes.
I usually buy almond flour at Costco for much less than I can at Whole Foods. I truly love baking and fiddling around with different types of ingredients. My DH enjoys something sweet after dinner but has never been too thrilled with LC. I keep at it though because I enjoy the challenge. Plus I do like the taste. I have pretty good discipline when it comes to portion size as long as it’s LC. Real sugar desserts have to be avoided because it’s hard to stop.
Yeah, it must be useful for many people as I almost never see a recipe without it…
My SO enjoys sweets for breakfast so I often make simple cakes. I wouldn’t waste expensive flour on him as he is happy with anything else just the same… Poppy seeds are cheap and nice and rich in calcium so that cake is the usual… But it’s not so good for me.
Since I don’t really want to eat cake, the sweets at home are either more or less carby, only for him (more if he makes them and not me) or not cakes but ice cream or something. Often pancakes so he can have his sweet dish while I can have my savory dish, the pancakes themselves are carnivore and very neutral, they can be many things.
Sugary desserts have zero chance, they are so not to our liking (maybe some chocolates if we mix them with other things to lower the horrible sweetness). I can use ridiculous amounts of certain things (especially booze, fruits and vegetables) but if I make sweets, I want a proper amount. So of course they need to be extreme low-carb - or a bit carbier if I don’t mind a higher intake, I love fruits. But I don’t need zillion calories so I focus on my protein sources as always when I make my desserts so they are almost perfectly proper dishes in my world. We both use them for getting nutrients and satiation, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy them as well, of course. My SO loves all my LC and VLC desserts and if I experiment with something carbier, he is there to eat the result up too. I am lucky.
Jane, I have found that Lupin Flour has to be cut with almond flour. It can’t be used on its own unless you are using it to bread chicken or fish, but even then I like to cut it with some whey protein powder. For instance when I make my muffins, instead of using 2 cups of almond flour, I use 1 1/4 cups almond, and the rest lupin. That will cut the carbs and the lupin gives it a bread-like texture. I also used Xanthan gum in one of my muffin recipes and I think I may have to start adding it because it also helped with the texture.
Zucchini then, that’s low-carb. But many keto recipes are quite carby, for people who can eat a tiny amount… Like all the pumpkin recipes. I don’t even go near pumpkin on keto…