The ongoing evolution of the PSMF breadish

[RightNOW]

So Keto Upgrade channel just posted a video, they added psyllium like I did to the breadish recipe but she used more.

She did not add isolate or sour cream but she added a proofed yeast and got a ‘rise’ in the bread, that’s new.

She said it’s great but she did mention at the end she would do more experimenting to try and make it “less dry and more flavorful.” I suggested to her the sour cream for reducing the dryness since that worked for me.

fwiw here is her current version

Low Carb Bread Loaf Recipe

292 g Warm Water (100-110 degree Fahrenheit) (1- 1/4 Cup)
9 g Active Dry Yeast (2 1/4 tsp.)
7 g Honey/ 6 g Inulin (1 tsp./ 2 tsp.)
10 g Whole Psyllium Husk (2 Tbs.)
100 g Egg White Powder (about 1- 1/4 Cup)
20 g - 80 g Allulose (2 Tbs. - 1/2 Cup)
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/2 tsp. Cream of Tarter
24 g Heavy Cream Powder (optional, can use butter powder also) (3 Tbs.)

Macros for whole batch:
587 Calories
18 g Fat
20 g Total Carbs
15 g Fiber
5 g Net Carbs
85 g Protein

Blog Link to Full Recipe: https://www.ketoupgrade.info/post/low-carb-bread-loaf-recipe

[Shinita]

These are new things! Well I have dry yeast and phyllium husk (from my old days, poor thing is waiting for who knows what)… And I bought sour cream and even greek yogurt Too many options so maybe I will stick to this recipe as much as I am able to without fancy ingredients.
(I have honey too but I never add sugar to my breads, keto or not - and when I did, I saw no difference - so I don’t plan to use that but maybe this special one needs it as poor yeast can’t draw sugar from anywhere while it had some tiny options before…? Oh well, fine.)

A thought popped into my mind 1-2 days ago. What if I just ground some sponge cake for egg powder? It becomes so nicely dry and crumbly when left alone for some days, it must be easy to ground up. Or how people make homemade egg powder, maybe there is some easier method…? Oh well, sponge cakes are easy to make (my 100% egg ones).

I definitely will experiment. Maybe I should keep it almost completely carnivore, it’s my default woe anyway but it gives me only very many options, not zillion/near infinite ones But I will use certain things I see here, maybe they will help too. I just don’t want to do what I did with my pancakes and sponge cakes when I just tried all possible flours I had and I had so many… And there are ratios and mixing flours… Oh my. I can’t handle that again.
(In the end I was happiest with the easiest versions… No flour But they could be better, at least my sponge cake breads. They are deflated almost weightless little things. Not bad, somewhat fluffy but…)

Thanks for the new recipe!
I never would have thought about yeast. Whipped eggs are already fluffy so it’s an odd idea to me. But I am open to try it! I am curious.

[RightNOW]

The honey or inulin is for the yeast. She proofs it before baking. It did seem to rise.

Edited to add: the dry-ING factor in this bread is not ok with me. It is not a viable recipe until that is solved. But the bread has to be robust enough to actually handle putting things on/in it, so my last experiment solved most the former while invoking the latter. I will keep trying. It seems fairly close.

[Shinita]

I had to cook and bake too much lately so I still couldn’t bring myself to play with this. I only made my usual sponge cakes, some were super white! They are always quite moist…
Now I opened a big cup of greek yogurt, it’s so sour cream-like (just way less fatty, only 10% but it’s already decent for me. it’s almost as fatty as the low-fat sour cream I avoid but I accept this from a yogurt) and it’s much so I surely will put some into the next batch of sponge cakes. I like that I have a mold for 12 muffins as I would hate spend more than an egg white for something I am not sure being good. Though my sponge cakes always work to some extent…
I tried to use some konjac flour last time, it made it a bit firmer, no wonder here, all flour like thing does it and konjac flour is pretty good at making things denser so a tiny bit had some effect.
Tomorrow I will try to make enough sponge cakes to dry and ground some later and I will use THAT as egg powder in my future whiter sponge cake breads. Along with lots of fresh whites, of course, that’s the convenient thing for me.
I avoid putting high-carb items into it for the near future. It’s supposed to be my as strict carnivore as I can January, after all. Even the yogurt is a wild thing here Starches just can’t come into play, not even in smallish amounts. And I wouldn’t like them later either. So I will use the other mentioned things.

[RightNOW]

Indigo Nili’s “Butter Buns v2.0” version. These are heavier by far on butter flavor, slightly denser texture thinner crust, for rolls not loafs. This uses gelatin instead of xanthan gum, an option butter flavoring addition, and acacia fiber in place of half the arrowroot.

Butter Bun 2.0
Ingredients

1 tsp honey (5g) **can be replaced with 1 tsp inulin**
1 1/4 cups warm of water (295ml)
1 tsp active dry yeast
100 g egg white protein powder (1 1/4 cups)
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp redmond real salt
1 tbsp gelatin powder (10g)
2 tbsp allulose (18g)
1 tbsp arrowroot powder (8g)

To add after whipping:

1 tsp butter flavor/extract
1/4 cup butter powder (24g)
3 tbsp acacia fiber powder (18g)

To add in the middle of the baking time:

3 tbsp melted butter
flake salt

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Prepare a silicone hamburger bun pan by spraying with cooking spray. Whisk together the honey and warm water in the bowl of your stand mixer. Sprinkle the yeast over the water mixture. Allow to stand for 3-5 minutes to allow the yeast to bloom. Add in the egg white powder, cream of tartar, salt, gelatin, allulose and arrowroot. Start the mixer with the whisk attachment on low speed. Gradually increase the speed until full. Mix on full speed for 5 minutes. Reduce speed to low. Add in the butter extract, butter powder and acacia fiber powder and mix on low just until combined and no lumps are left. Quickly divide batter into the 8 wells of the silicone bun pan and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the buns from the oven, brush each bun with melted butter and sprinkle as desired with flake salt. Return the buns to the oven and bake for 10 more minutes. Allow the buns to cool in the pan for about 5 minutes. Optionally, dust with additional butter powder. These buns are best served warm. Enjoy!

Recipe Notes

Per bun:
Calories: 131
Total Carbs: 4.3g
Fiber: 2.2g
Fat: 6.6g
Protein: 11.9g

**Note: I don’t include the allulose carbs in the carb count because they are not absorbed by the body

I am hoping to have the time to try this variant out, replacing acacia with whole psyllium husks (because that’s the only soluble fiber I have that would work), maybe by Tuesday.

I still have not successfully got this bread recipe fully to a point where I don’t consider it too dry-ING, although the last variant I made with sour cream was actually close enough I wouldn’t argue – except then in turn it was too soft and sweet to qualify as a functional bread (more like not-quite-angel food cake). All this butter stuff might make it a bit more savory. I will use a lot less allulose than she does though. Just 1 Tbsp for some browning. Last time I added regular sweetener to compensate but I’ll leave that out next time.

[Shinita]

As I have a probably super short vegetarian time now, I finally can experiment with these… Or something similar…

Isn’t all the fat is a bit against the all PSMF thing? Not like it’s a problem for me, I surely don’t want low-fat days… But it’s easier and better to use a lot of yolks then. Maybe it’s not true for people who dislike eggy breads (flavor wise as an egg white based bread is clearly eggy too) and I still don’t know what butter powder like, whatever.

I wondered how come the yeast does something without gluten? Isn’t that needed for raising a bread?
And what can gelatin do in the oven? I only know that gelatin should be kept from big heat if we want to make jelly (it isn’t true according to my experiences, I totally boiled it accidentally and it worked) and when I put it into my sponge cake bread, it didn’t do much.

These breads has infinite varieties and I can’t try everything so I just grab these last recipes tomorrow and do my own somehow.

My fattier sponge cake experiments progress nicely, I am a fan of using sour cream or fatty yogurt in them now. It even made them way prettier and it’s a bit sour and pleasant, I used some dill, it’s usually for quark dishes but works fine with these other dairy items too. I will experiment with less yolks but keeping the dairy.

My creations are always moist, not too much but dryness is super far from them. I don’t use any powders though, maybe that’s why…?

[Shinita]

I tried out this last recipe as much as I could… It’s very good! I am super full and still had to try not to eat the whole batch up! I used half the amounts in the original recipe.

They looked pretty. It’s important for me. I don’t expect all my food to be pretty but I strongly prefer when my baked goods are like that.

They are a tad moist and not so firm, yeah I just omitted the allulose, didn’t replace it with anything (and I replaced the butter powder with pure fat)… I will do it differently next time.

I used vinegar instead of tartar, phyllium husk and bamboo fiber instead of acacia fiber, coconut oil instead of butter powder (and didn’t butter them during baking, I added the butter when I ate them) and I used fresh egg whites, of course. Oh and I have no arrowroot powder and didn’t want a too carby stuff and it has yeast so I added gluten.
I tried it with an extra yolk and without, it seems the yolk enhances the flavor, no surprise there…

It is an interesting thing. It definitely has some very nice though confusing part of freshly baked bakery bread. My own wheat breads don’t have that. But I learned to associate that smell and feeling with very carby breads so it’s confusing, I kinda like it but don’t want it as it means carby and not eggy bread to me… But I will get over it quickly I imagine as this thing is really nice!
Even if I need to enhance it with some powder. Maybe konjac flour, I have some and never use it nowadays and it’s used in breads.

I still don’t know what the gelatin does but I have it and it’s carnivore so I don’t feel the urge to remove it.
I won’t use honey in the future as poor yeast has no time to eat it anyway and the bread got too sweet due to it. The salt amount was perfect for me. I didn’t add salt on top but that would be fine too, I salted some very buttery bites, the little salt in the dough was just the lower part of the right amount.

So it’s really nice. Too protein-rich for me, probably but may be right for super fatty days when the fat doesn’t come from my protein sources. And perfectly fine anyway unless I overeat and end up with over 220g protein again, not like it’s a problem but somewhat wasteful.

[Shinita]

I made it again just without the water/yeast/honey… And used konjac flour… I made about 6 different kinds for my 11 muffins and promptly forgot which has what So I will do it again but I still learned a few things.

First of all, I am pretty unreliable as now I was pretty much into the yolkless ones. And they hadn’t even fat in them, poor things! But finally I got the firmness in the video. It was super cool and the high muffin never deflated and it was soooo pretty all white inside! No photos, I will make some next time. I ate it with some food so I didn’t mind that it had little taste (I suppose that was the case). It was too salty though.
I found no drying effect this far but I am happy the moist texture disappeared and I got that fun stuff. It’s like some baked salty marshmallow! My marshmallow is egg white based (and I usually use a yolk. obviously. it’s good, reminds me of a popular cake filling despite it’s pretty different macro wise… eggs are awesome) and don’t have much sweetener to influence its texture, maybe that’s why. Egg-based dishes tend to converge to the perfect 100% egg state in my kitchen so they tend to be similar to the others with the same egg white:yolk ratio and whippedness.

Sorry, I got carried away. So, the lack of yeast wasn’t a problem but it changed the thing… And of course it lost its sweetness as it lost the honey. I forgot to try adding walnut, I planned that (I have many walnuts now and I put them into things where it seems a great idea. it did good to my normal bread - low-carb and a bit eggy but has gluten and yeast and even some old bread dough. it was great but I must say this new egg white one will do it fine for me - and it’s widely used in sponge cakes).
Phyllium husk and bamboo fiber in 1:2 ratio (volume wise, at least) worked well last time and now too, I keep that.
Starch isn’t needed at all, I already knew that from last time.
I wonder what could do gelatin alone and what the bread does without it… But I can’t test everything right away. Things get easier now as I go back to carnivore-ish (most of the time) so my bread experiments will be pretty much carnivore in the very near future. Maybe I keep the vinegar but that’s it, I still have so, so many options… Considering different ratios, practically infinite but I am not that sensitive so a few dozens of experiments will do. (As always, I will do multiple per batch, I love this muffin mold. I prefer just to add things and not mixing something very different for every 1-2 muffins.)

The ones with more yolk were nice but still lost the charm of the whiter ones somehow. 1 yolk is probably more than enough for 6 whites (5 didn’t fill all the mold. 6 either but that’s a too nice number for 12 muffins, sometimes I want to track. though I can just eat up the whole batch or half of it I suppose). I plan to make some whiter sponge cakes and ground them when dried and use that powder. As using 0.5 or 0.4 yolks is very inconvenient and anyway, powder helps with firmness without needing to use non-carnivore items like fibers or konjac flour. Not like I am THAT strict but I still try to be cleaner if it’s possible without sacrifices.

Now I only have egg yolk powder and liver powder to use… Yeah, making these carnivore offers still too many options…

My actual thing with its very varied individual buns but at average too much yolk and possibly unnecessarily much fat (I can add that later if needed) was 360 kcal for the 11 buns, 50% fat in calories (unless I forgot something). Nice and it seems pretty satiating though it’s hard to tell as there are so many factors, I will experiment. A batch is a super tiny meal alone (for me) but adding butter, cheese, sausage etc. it changes. I am not into PSMF to put it lightly, I just adore fluffy eggy breads with a decent firmness.

[Buttonwillow]

I finally made a basic form of this “bread” using fresh whites plus some home-dried whites powder and a bit of home-dried whole egg powder.
What a lot of work for so little gain.

I will take Indigo Nili’s word that the product is greatly improved by her changes: acacia gum, etc. but I gladly hand over to RightNOW the work of trying to get a product that does not feel dry in the mouth, because she has it right. The bread is not dry but in the mouth you don’t produce enough saliva get a pleasant chew from it. A big slather of butter helps.

As French toast it was a bust as it will not absorb your beaten egg, unlike IN’s positive spin on her failures. And, curiously, I noticed that after being warmed in a well buttered skillet, the mouth feel was much more pleasant.

On the PRO side, you get something similar to bread. IN’s recipe may even qualify as good.

On the CON side, the cost is ridiculous for me, in terms of both time and money, I used 10 medium fresh egg whites to get enough to make a one-half recipe. To get a scant third cup of dried whites I used up at least a dozen whole eggs. The whole egg powder I made, just 10 grams, came from about 6 whole eggs. It’s no wonder the commercial stuff costs so much. Beyond that, I just can’t believe that the taste and texture of anyone’s final product can justify all this, regardless of what Nili Vanilli says.

Remember, she can write off the cost of her supplies as business expenses, since she gets an income from her YT videos. More power to her, but this is not for me.

[Shinita]

I wonder why I got nothing of the dryness… I only used fresh eggs this far though. But some extra powder never did anything like that. Odd.
Of course mine is different on more ways due to not having many fancy ingredients… But it’s still odd to me. I wonder if it’s me or the items. I do know the feeling when a baked thing is too dry but my sponge cake breads never had that, rather the opposite when they were too eggy so too wet even after baking…

French toast! I never tried that yet. Sounds nice but I really shouldn’t use fat in the dough then… 10g fat and one yolk for 5-6 eggs already felt a bit too much for some reason.

I only tried to make egg powder once, I don’t want to bother with that method - but I may ground up some old egg bread and use it in tiiiiny amounts (never did that yet). Yes, I need to sacrifice an already baked stuff (but an easy one, only eggs)… But it isn’t needed if I allow a little plant matter as I experienced so I am glad. I still will try that. I am a curious one.

I have a bread phase now and having such items are very useful when I can’t stomach enough eggs in their normal form. My normal sponge cakes are good most of the time but they are a bit moist and deflated, not nearly as good as a drier, firmer bread. I am probably lucky that I never liked normal breads much but I am into eggy ones…

[Shinita]

I still make experiments and will for a while I am sure. Well okay I actually fell back to my normal sponge cakes but I try to use egg powder, not easy as I either eat up my sponge cakes or they get moldy, they did it last time, it was surprising as my not too moist bread type things never do that. Maybe they were still too moist, it’s possible.

At least I got back the firmness, I simply shouldn’t put much stuff into the whipped egg whites. Even yolks break it, no matter how tender and patient I am when mixing them in (not much. I am not the patient type when cooking). More yolks break it more. So I have nice firm and not too moist little wonders when I only use whites. I didn’t experiment with putting stuff into it yet but it’s already firm so why ruin the carnivoreness… But I will play with dairy and whatnot later.

Little experience with egg powder this far but it definitely helps with firmness, no wonder.

[RightNOW]

I am ‘borrowing’ this from a nice person on reddit who’s been experimenting with the same sort of ideas I’ve had for this stuff and it seems like hers came out well.

I’ve been doing lots of experiments with Emmerich’s psmf bread, and watched all of Indigo Nili’s experimenting, and boy, if you haven’t started making this bread you MUST try it. It’s pretty easy and quick for a keto recipe, and it’s so close to real actual bread that I put in in my kids lunches and they had NO IDEA it was made of essentially, well, egg whites. I have no idea how this magic happens, but here’s the recipe I’m using after toying around myself for the last week! It even smells like bread somehow. It toasts in a toaster or a pan, gets crispy like real bread, pulls apart and chews like real bread. I’ve never been more satisfied with a keto substitute!

100g egg white protein powder

3 egg whites

200ml water with a teaspoon of white vinegar (to stabilise whites)

30-40g erythritol

5g salt

1ml xanthan gum

20g lupin flour

20g butter, cream, or cheese powder

10g psyllium (powdered)

Add egg white powder, egg whites, erythritol, salt, and xanthan gum to a stand mixer (hand blender works too) with the water and vinegar mixture and whip until stiff (takes about 3 minutes in my kitchen aid)

Sift in the lupin, psyllium, and whichever fat powder you chose and mix in (but don’t whip too intensely)

Add to bread tin (line with baking paper if it’s not silicone) or whichever silicone bread shaping sheets you have, and bake for 30 minutes at 160 celcius.

[robintemplin]

I just realized that even great photos of beautiful bread, no longer appeal to me.
From day one on keto, I knew I could not be trusted with keto versions of carbs I love. That’s me and my addictive personality and history.
It’s amazing to me that my brain has been trained to dismiss those images as unappealing.
I am guessing I am not alone in that.

[Shinita]

Oh I know zillion different looking breads and still like some of them…
And looking nice and feeling nice are very different anyway…
This last thing looks interesting, nothing like the breads I had and I definitely couldn’t make something like this ever.
(Yesterday I tried to make a white wheat bread, I actually used more white flour my SO likes… It got gray and way darker than the bread of Middle Age peasants (according to a YT channel) The color was pretty close to my bread when I did my absolute best to make it black, I even used black “flours”… My breads are stubborn like that and always dense too. With air bubbles, sure but not like a store-bought fluff I always pretty much disliked…)

I must stick to my own breads, they are all quite nice and more or less eggy (and I can reach a perfect white color though it’s only egg whites, baked but it’s a firm fluff :D). I just can’t make things like in this thread. I don’t have egg white powder, that’s true… I have egg powder but I didn’t like the result when I used some of that. But at least I learned to appreciate my original, soft, somewhat deflated but still fluffy sponge cakes They are carnivore too so all is well.
And thanks to this thread, I have whiter sponge cakes now (and hoard almost all the leftover egg whites in the household as I eat them basically every day, sometimes galore).

But maybe I will experiment more one day, this exotic texture interest me. Definitely not using sweetener, though, I hate sweet bread unless it’s specifically a dessert (but even so, I prefer unsweetened bread with something sweet on it. If it’s normal bread, PSMF sweet bread is sweet sponge cake to me, that’s a valid thing). On the other hand, salt is needed.

[ctviggen]

I might make this over the weekend. If we could use this for our kid’s sandwiches, that would help a ton.

Edit: It might be longer, as I’m not sure I have all the items, particularly lupin powder.

[Shinita]

I don’t think I could get lupin powder here but I surely could use something else…? But I don’t have egg white protein powder, maybe I get it at some point (just once, I like my eggs from proper sources).

Tell us how it turns out when you do it!

Meanwhile I will experiment with savory PSMF sponge cake breads… Sour cream and dill sounds an okay idea to me…

[ctviggen]

Well, I realized I’d have to buy both lupin flour and butter powder. (Unless I could take cheese puffs and grind them into powder?) I thought the 20g was of butter, not butter powder. That drives the cost up, as usually, you have to buy these by the pound (454 grams).

I’d love to buy these in 4 ounce containers.

So, I might not make this.

[Shinita]

We don’t even have butter powder here - or only in some super special shops in the capital… I didn’t even find it in webshops. It still sounds so strange to me, butter is fatty, how can it become powder?
I don’t think it matters so much if one just use a smaller amount of butter instead but I am reckless like that. I made carnivore dish using an originally carby vegan recipe before.
I know that if it’s about the texture of some baked goods, little things may matter but maybe this single item isn’t THAT important…?

[ctviggen]

I’m not sure what the effect would be be if I left those two things out. When following a recipe, I try to follow the recipe exactly if I can, only so I get what the person was trying to achieve.

It’s just with things like this, if I buy a pound of it, I’ll never use it all before it’ll go bad.

I do know the lupin powder is advertised as being good for keto diets, as it’s almost 100 percent fiber. Fiber and I don’t often get along though, so I’m not sure what else I could make with this.

[Shinita]

I can understand that. It’s good I can buy 100g phyllium husk… The other fiber I have will last forever…

Your attitude makes sense, I just know that I need zillion tweaks on any recipe anyway and I have very much experience and I must make versions… Even when I have a great recipe, I just can’t make it the same again and again… I am incorrigible like that. And I simplify.
Some recipes are pretty resilient and afford changes like this. While some are so tricky that I try to make it the same 2 times and the result will be different… Baking is tricky. Cooking is easy.