Found that pan on Amazon. My wife has a 6 count small bunt cake pan, but wouldn't be the same with the ridges in them!

Did a little reading on the RWS, apparently it IS a thickener like cornstarch and creates elasticity. It's apparently an excellent weight loss ingredient too. I need to do some more looking around, not a lot of people posting recipes using the stuff. Might have to do some trial/error tests when I have the time.

If the link below opens correctly, it should take you to Amazon's Bob's Red Mill arrowroot starch/powder offering. There are 6 images you can select to look at the packaging. The top right image is the side of the package. You can read right there on the packaging where they say for ice cream. I was very surprised to see that, considering the conversations recently about this.

https://www.amazon.com/Bobs-Red-Mil...B00FTCE63G?th=1

If I can find some decent Popsicle forms, thats a great way to eat that ice cream recipe after it has frozen hard. The problem has been finding some that arent child sized!

This is the ice cream bar molds set I have: https://www.target.com/p/tovolo-gro...-6/-/A-11043792 They are normal size.

I'm going to have to try RWS as a thickener and see how it performs compared to xanthan gum. Thanks for exploring and getting back with your findings, Ken.

I seem to be drawn to the expensive stuff! Like this:

https://www.amazon.com/kingleder-St...s=popsicle+mold

I want to be able to remove that little tray/cap from the stick. I know they are anti drip, but seems to me there'd be a risk of accidentally dumping what collects in it. I am a "Murphy" and thats probably exactly what would happen to me! Those stainless are only 3oz I think. Too small I believe for a grown up. The ones you have are 4 oz I think, even that would take your 4 serving recipe and break it in to 6 I think.

These are an interesting option, but with the chunks of frozen fruit in the ice cream one would have to use a piping bag to load them.

https://www.amazon.com/Disposable-P...s=popsicle+mold

I need a better food processor...I made a mixed berry version and the whole strawberries would not all chop up well, they were tasty nuggets eating with a spoon though!

I will try the RWS next time I make ice cream too. If it actually solves the hard freeze issue, the Popsicles could be a moot point. BUT! Since you have those Popsicle forms, you should try them with the ice cream if you haven't, it totally solves the issue because the ice cream frozen hard makes a stable but bite-able pop. I just didn't like the forms we bought and they were too small. Too much work to deal with them from loading to washing.

I guess I must be your biggest fan on the site here Peggy...surprised others are not interested in any of these topics.

BUT...I made your stuffed focaccia, and it is really good





I used hot Italian sausage for the meat, shredded mozz instead of sliced, and I also sauteed a diced jalapeno, some onion and minced fresh garlic and mixed that with the ground sausage.

I did use a marinara sauce that I cooked down really thick for a couple hours and stepped on it (jarred sauce) with my usual seasonings to amp the flavor up. I spooned it on top, but not too much, not knowing how much it might make the bread soggy. It really didn't, and in the future I'll be much more liberal with it.

The bottom layer of the focaccia was a little crumbly/soft, which makes sense but I have a plan for next time. The meat part of the filling could also benefit from some sauce, so I will do this next time:

Pre-bake the bottom focaccia layer a bit so it rises. Pull that out of the oven, then flip that layer over so the bottom faces up. This will allow the layer to rise and put the least absorbent side up toward the filling.

I'll add some of the reduced sauce to the meat mixture with the aforementioned jalapenos, etc, then essentially follow the recipe from there.

If you look at the top layer of focaccia, I put that portion of dough in a piping bag and piped it in "ropes" over the top. I think t came out beautiful.

Also, the parchment papers is a great idea, I almost skipped it figuring this would cut and serve just fine without it. But it allowed me to remove the baked dish just by lifting the parchment and sitting the "loaf" on a wire rack to cool and not allow any more moisture to be trapped. This allowed for easy cutting with a serrated bread knife so it stayed perfectly intact in pieces. The parchment will also make my flip of the bottom layer method much easier. I snipped the corners of the parchment at a 45° in from the corners so it could fold in to the corners of the pan for a nice square-ish fit.

I can imagine several different flavor profiles...different meats, different cheeses, different flavors in the focaccia itself with this method. I make an Italian seasoned version of the focaccia most of the time, but just recently did one with herbs de province that works well with a lot of toppings like pesto and tapenade. I have also made a bacon and cheddar version which would be good with...yep, ground beef and cheddar in the middle of this dish! Mexican...thats right, I can see a fantastic version of this in a Mexican format...even a Greek flavor profile with ground lamb.

I even used your idea of making up the dry ingredients as an assembly line. This bread is so good, it disappears fast, I need to make more...more efficiently. So from now on I will make up 6 batches of the dry at a time. I didn't have cheap paper plates, we only keep the good ones, but I found some large Styrofoam cups I have no idea why we have, and thats what I portioned in, then poured in to baggies. Rinsed the cups, let them dry and stacked them in the pantry to use over and over!

Thank you for your work. It's really expanded my low carb cuisine.

A thing of beauty! So glad you liked it! You're having way too much fun with this. Hope I haven't created a monster. It's nice you're enjoying experimenting. I have always said food boredom is the kiss of death for any diet. Still feel that way. So happy experimenting!

Thanks for humoring me. Not a monster at all, the wife and I are really enjoying the breads, etc.. All of this does in fact relieve the food boredom of dieting and feeds my hobby of cooking. I was at a loss when I started this diet, now we are eating well! In some cases, foods we would be happy to have been served in a good restaurant.

I made your "sliced bread" I call "flat pan bread" last night. I wanted something a little softer and more neutral and white-bread-like for BLT's. My homegrown tomatoes are ripening and BLT's are an annual seasonal treat for us along with tomato soup, gazpacho, caprese salad, roasted cherry tomato bruschetta, etc..



I could not get it as perfectly flat as I wanted, but I selected the best pieces for slicing and using the more irregular ones for topping. I made the bread sticks from some last night that you suggest along with the recipe, it was a nice treat and I made a dipping marinara from some fresh tomatoes that needed salvaging (going bad), skinned, seeded, chopped and cooked down real thick.

In your narrative on that recipe, you tell the reader "The day I decided to make my Focaccia Sheet Bread recipe without the shredded cheese was a good day". But the recipe is very different than the Gluten-Free Grain-Free Focaccia recipe minus the shredded cheese. Was that an evolution, where you forgot the cheese one day, kind of liked the results, then tweaked the recipe beyond that? Or were you using a different focaccia recipe and evolved to the current focaccia? Or...just curious how you got "there from there".

With your mozzy dough (yep, I digressed again), you have 1/2 tsp psyllium husk powder. its really a tiny amount compared to the rest of the recipe. What does that do for the recipe, and any recommendations for a substitution or omitting it? Are you still using this dough? I dont see that it made any of the All-Star Recipes category as a component. Wondering if its one I should be adding to my repertoire.

Thanks!

I have two focaccia bread recipes. This was my earliest LC focaccia developed when I had not been LC'ing long: https://buttoni.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/focaccia/. This one was developed several years later: https://buttoni.wordpress.com/2018/...ree-focaccia-2/. Not sure which one you are playing with. The Peggy's Sliced Bread was the oldest recipe with the Parm and Jack cheeses left out. I like both recipes for focaccia and still think the sliced bread recipe is one of my best sandwich breads. You can bake any of them in smaller 9x13 pan for a thicker bread that will be softer and more slicable. I have a good cook friend on Low Carb Neighborhood forums that does that and just loves the sliced bread recipe cooked in the slightly smaller pan. I myself haven't done that yet, as I like a very thin sheet of bread for my sandwiches.

On the Mozzy dough, that tiny amount of psyllium adds to the elasticity of breads. Too much can make them tough, however. I think the dough would cook up OK without it, particularly for applications that you WANT to be more biscuit-like, or scone-like, where elasticity isn't desired. But for pizza crusts, bagels, pretzels and such, the slight elasticity is more desirable IMHO. This dough is a new recipe and I'm only just beginning to learn new ways to use and modify it for specific uses. My next plan is to omit the spices and try a sweet strudel or sweet bagel.

That explains it. I love the sliced bread recipe too...I dont love that it takes a whole block of cream cheese though!

I had a hot sliced chicken breast with Havarti cheese sandwich using two whole "slices" of it last night. Very good. I toasted the slices in the toaster oven till somewhat browned and arranged the sliced chicken breast (from a store-bought baked chicken) on a small plate in a square/rectangle shape the size of the bread slices, and topped with off the block slices of Havarti, then microwaved it for maybe 30 seconds till the cheese started melting. Put that and a thick slather of mayo on both slices of bread, fresh ground pepper and what a great sandwich.

Equally as awesome, this morning I toasted a slice just until barely showing any additional browning...that re-livens-up the bread...spread some butter on it and topped it with two soft boiled eggs busted over top, salt and pepper. If it weren't for the thinness, I almost thought I was tasting a traditional biscuit.


Does glucomannan do something similar to the psyllium powder? I was trying to find one of your conversations somewhere where I thought you were explaining to someone that adding glucomannan powder added elasticity or something similar.

I'm trying to avoid buying yet another package of product used only a little in some recipes. I'm running out of pantry to store all the stuff I have bought for low carb cooking!

Checking out your site again this morning I got my answer on if you are still using the mozzy dough. You just made that beef strudel with it a week ago. Looks very good.

You mentioned refried beans if you have the spare carbs in that recipe. I have been making refried beans AND hummus with black soy beans. They arent just for chili anymore! There is a discussion in here about them (canned). Some were saying they lie on the nutrition label. I'm finding it hard to believe if this is "well known", that this situation would not have been rectified. A company can get in a lot of trouble falsifying nutritional information. So I'm choosing to believe what the label says, these companies usually have a lab test for the values, especially those that proffer to special diets. Total carbs is total carbs and dietary fiber is dietary fiber.

Some folks may be calculating wrong. I just caught my wife last night pre-planning a fast food stop for a road trip looking at the nutritional values on the restaurant's web site, she was finding all kinds of good stuff at Bojangles, until I said "what?..No way!" and she said "yea, you subtract the protein from the carbs for the net carbs, right". She really isn't that dumb, but that was cranial flatulence for sure!

Gluc powder in baked goods basically improves texture (make things smoother with finer crumb) and tends to slightly increase volume. The volume discovery was on a cornbread experiment one night. Baked small batch one Sunday that was so tasty with butter, I turned around and baked it a second time so my husband could have it when he got home from Austin (he goes there for his hobby every Sunday). But I decided to add a bit of gluc to the second batch. They rose almost half again as high in the same muffin pan.

Yes, you get a pretty decent refried bean result from black soy beans. Really low in carbs, so I use them in chili and some Mexican food recipes. But I'd be lying if I said it was a good as refried made from pintos. So I just use tiny amounts of pinto refried beans in some recipes if I can fit the carbs into my daily limit that day. Those black soy beans are so darned expensive. I used to buy them by the case direct from Eden Foods, but they have gone up in $$ there as well.

Maria Emmerich, on her recipe/health site http://mariamindbodyhealth.com/, has a refried bean recipe made with eggplant, but that just doesn't sound like it would be even remotely similar in taste (or texture) to me, so I've never tried it.

Looks like Xanthan gum would be the best alternative to the psyllium powder. Probably starting with 1/4tsp in place of the 1/2tsp psyllium at first to avoid overdoing it. I'm trying to work with the products I have. I've spent enough money buying all this stuff! The specialty/health foods purveyors should send you a check!

I can report that RWS75 does NOT crisp up the same as cornstarch as a deep fry coating. What a shame, I had such high hopes. It wasn't bad, just not crispy. I'm going to play around with a mixture of that, some oat fiber and some whey protein next. I think there is something to that whey protein being in your fried chicken breader making it such a hard crust...delightfully so. I know the oat fiber tastes good and adds a sort of "body" to the exterior of chicken wings, so it will be interesting to see what comes of my experiments in trying to find a deep fry breader. At some point I can just go back to House Autry's because the amount used to actually coat something is not a lot, so the carbs are doable as a splurge as I get near goal (I'm stalled at about 37lbs lost and 13 to go...mainly because I've been on a drinking binge I suspect), but for now, this is a challenge...and I like challenges.

Your peach strudel recipe comes at a perfect time. I have a couple peaches that are in need of cooking. They are ripening a little mealy and would be best suited for cooking. I was going to ask how well it keeps and re-heats, but I suppose I may find out about as fast as you would reply! I'm doing it! By the way, I notice you use erythritol. Once I found Sucralose and Erythritol, I gave my erythritol away

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...ge?ie=UTF8&th=1

The stuff tastes nearly identical to sugar on my palate. It still re-crystallizes when it cools, so not great for liquids like making simple syrup. I keep liquid sucralose on hand for that. Its far better than any other liquid sweetener I have tired. I cant stand Stevia...gave that stuff away too.

No doubt black soy beans are not as good as pinto's...or just about any other bean! But what a deal for the carb count. Not only are they good in chili but we have started just eating them as beans as a side. I have a good heavy seasoning hand and mind so I can bring those saltless nearly flavorless suckers up to "these are really good" as my wife commented on several times the last time we had them. They need to spend a lot of time in the saucepan with those seasonings though. I find thats the best way to cook them even for refried beans, I put them in the pan, liquid and all, step all over it with seasonings (I like to use bouillon granules for the salt because it brings a depth of flavor), and cook them until most of the liquid has evaporated. Putting them in a food processor would be better for refried beans but that dirties up a whole other set of stuff to wash, so I just usually hand mash them with a plastic potato masher right in the pan...its "good enough". For hummus, its almost hard to tell they are what they are with the strong flavor of tahini, lemon, garlic and cumin I like in my hummus. I do actually eat some real hummus here and there, my wife keeps it on hand (she'll eat my soy bean hummus if I make it, but thats only on occasion) Most hummus is not too bad on carbs if you only have a little.

I played around with a cauliflower hummus that came out quite tasty. Only thing on that one, however is you only want to make what will be consumed at one sitting, as the cauli taste came through on the leftovers, but it was REAL close to the real deal and not too carby. I think I posted it on the forums, but it was years ago. Here's a link to it: https://buttoni.wordpress.com/2011/05/01/hummus/

My black soy bean "refried beans" are getting even better, so no need to do the cauliflower version for me. However, one thing that never gets old is mashed cauliflower simulated mashed potatoes.

The other night I was making soft tacos and wanted that "schmear" of refried beans along with the seasoned ground turkey meat and fresh homemade pico de gallo. I decided to put the beans in the food processor like I do for hummus. It is a keeper method for sure. I drained the beans reserving the liquid, dumped them in the food processor then put granulated chicken bouillon for salt (these canned beans are no salt added, so, super bland and need a lot of help), a heavy hand of spices like chili, cumin, garlic, onion powders and anything else that hits me at the moment. Then processed for quite a while slowly adding the reserved liquid until the consistency was nice and smooth (discarding the unused liquid).

Then transferred to a small non-stick sauce pan to cook/heat. What I just thought to add that would make them even better, is some bacon fat when heating.

So, I made your strudel and it worked out OK. The one thing I forgot to do was let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes. I substituted Xanthan gum for the psyllium powder (half as much) but read that when using xanthan to allow to rest because it takes some time for it to hydrate. So my dough lacked that elasticity. It was not easy to roll out to a proper rectangle. I had to trim the edges and use those trimmings to fill in the edges where it was lacking and some areas where the dough was separating in general. I was able to somewhat re-incorporate those migrated pieces fairly well.



The peaches



The sucralose and erythritol granules (this stuff blows away just plain erythritol) and the cinnamon. I think I put some nutmeg in there too. Oh yea, the butter pieces too!




The dough would not pinch to seal, probably due to the lack of psyllium powder or my fail to allow the xanthan gum to rest. But what I didn't take a picture of is, after this point, I brushed egg all over the ends and the seam to seal it, then sprinkled more of the sweetener on it.



It baked up real nice though. A couple breaks in the surface but nothing oozed out, it was fine.



I've learned that wire racks are great for a lot of uses, especially letting something like this cool without getting soggy and to rest griddled sandwiches before cutting and serving for the same reason



The final product was really good. One of the few baked goods where I actually like the crusty ends as much or more than the filled portion. In the more moist span of the strudel, the crust had just a hint of that "texture" from the xanthan...I dont want to call it slimy because its not, but anyone who uses xanthan knows there is a threshold where the line is crossed and it gets weird...this was just on the good side of that. I realized I have some laxative we seldom use that is psylium powder. I may break apart some of those capsules for the next try to see the difference before spending the money on buying it. It's not cheap and to get the best pricing you have to buy a lot compared to what is used in the recipe.



I think it needed more sweetener. I didn't measure, I eyeballed it but pretty sure I got at least the 1/4 cup in there plus I topped it with sweetener. I forgot to add the vanilla in the dough too, which will be good next time. My wife thought it was fine as is...I ate my last portion smothered in sugar free imitation maple syrup! I dont have a huge sweet tooth but when my brain says something should be sweet, it wants it sweet!

So thanks again Peggy for your work and bringing these recipes to us Low Carbers!

I don't think xanthan gum will ever give you elasticity. It improves texture and crumb only. That's always been my understanding of why LC bakers put it in breads, biscuits and cakes. I really have never used xanthan in my baked goods, as I prefer to add glucomannan powder for that purpose, since it improves texture AND adds a bit of volume to the end product, which is very nice in muffins and cakes. LC baked goods tend to not rise much and everything I can add for volume is a plus in my book, so I will occasionally add gluc powder to bread recipes if the baking powder/soda hasn't done that job effectively on first trial.

FWIW, I didn't find my strudel quite sweet enough either and added more at table on my serving. The hubs was OK with the lower sweetness level.

Psyllium is primariily added for elasticity.

I was confusing "Binding" with "Elasticity".

https://www.culturesforhealth.com/l...urdough-baking/

Thanks

That's a very nice article, Ken. Thanks! I'm saving the link, as it sums up all the LC baking additives very nicely. It will be a nice referral for my blog readers when they ask about some ingredients.