I'm just not happy with what I have experienced with the low carb flour products I've tried. I've put carbquick in several things, plus tried Dixie Diner products several times and found the texture really lacking. Now, I know I read somewhere on this forum that others have experienced this basic dryness and found a way to fix it, but I can't find it now. Some of you master LC bakers, can you help me out?

Cisco

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Thanks for asking about this, Cisco.

I can't even use any of the low-carb baking mixes because they all contain at least some wheat, and I have celiac disease which requires a gluten-free diet. So I'm trying to bake using whey protein powder, nut flours and flaxseed meal instead, and I'm finding the same problem with dryness. The flavor of the things I bake with all of them is great, but so far the texture of all of them is very dry. So I'll be looking for replies here, too, hoping to find something that will help me.

What ingredients to use (or add) to a recipe really vary from application to application. In general, if things seem dry, add more fat.

But, it would be helpful to know what sort of things you were trying to bake and exactly what disappointed you about the final product. In baking LC, many things can be "fixed" , while a few really can't.

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In my case I've been trying to bake coffee cakes, sweet muffins and cookies, mostly using whey protein powder and/or almond flour, sometimes with small amounts of ground flaxseed added. They taste great, but they're so dry that if you breathe in while eating them, you end up coughing yourself silly!

So far I've been exactly following the recipes that a friend sent me from a low-carb cookbook she bought years ago. I thought of adding a little extra butter, but not being the world's greatest baker I'm not sure of how much adjusting can be done without ruining a recipe entirely. So I figured I'd ask for some advice before I plunged in.

Tell ya what. How about posting one of the recipes you've used and found to be too dry? I (and, I'm sure others) can then give you some ideas on adjusting or adding to the ingredients.

That might be a big help to you.

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While cooking can be described as an art, baking is truly a science. That is particularly true for low carb baking. Often, you must experiment to find the right combination of ingredients that works for you. When you do, write them down so you can repeat the results. This means you will have a lot of "mistakes" before you hit on the right combination. For example, I make a moist chocolate cake using black soy beans instead of flour. While the original recipe was "ok" and the cake smelled really great baking, the chocolate taste was not as pronunced as I was expecting from the smell and the texture was not quite right. To give the cake a firmer texture, I altered the recipe by adding oat fiber and to enhance the flavor, I added more cocoa. Those tweaks gave me the firm moist cake I was looking for. When I first tried the One Minute Muffin, I found it very dry. I altered the recipe by adding more butter (the original recipe called for 2 tsp, I now use 2 Tbls) and for most OMM aplications got the result I was looking for. However, when I tried adding corn bran to the OMM mix, I found I had to increase the liquid content as well. The bottom line is that in l/c baking you often need specific combinations of ingredients to produce an acceptable result because of the science involved in baking. All you can do is experiment and when you find a combination that works for you, post the results so others can learn from your experience.

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Henry

I often have the same dryness result when Baking. One thing that really worked for me was the addition of ricotta cheese to my omms. Chocolate cinnamon OMM with about 5 tbs ricotta really was the best I ever made.

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All help will be gratefully accepted! The following recipe is one that we felt was really delicious except that it was too dry. And I didn't let it bake too long. In fact, I tried it twice, the first time leaving it in the oven for 20 minutes, just till it tested done in the center, and it was too dry. So the next time I leaving it in for only 16 minutes. The second time the center was just barely done, but it seemed too moist and sort of soggy, while the outside pieces were too dry.

Sour Cream Snack Cake
Makes 12 servings @ 3 g. carbs and 3 g. protein each

1 c. vanilla whey protein powder
1/4 c. oat flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/3 c. Splenda
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 egg
1/2 c. oil
1/4 c. water
1/2 c. sour cream
1/4 c. chopped walnuts

Combine whey protein powder, oat flour, baking powder, baking soda, Splenda and cinnamon in a bowl. Mix egg, oil, water and sour cream in a bowl, then stir in dry ingredients. Pour into a greased 8-inch baking pan and tap on counter a few times to settle bubbles. Sprinkle nuts on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. Test with toothpick. Do not over bake or it will be dry.

From "Baking Low-Carb" by Diana Lee

Well, there certainly seems to be a good amount of fat in this recipe, although I admit I've never worked with a flavored whey protein powder.

However, if it were me, I'd try replacing the oat flour with the same amount of flax seed meal (use golden, for a more traditional look to the cake). Then I'd go for the full time. My experience is that flax adds a remarkable amount of moistness to most baked goods, probably because it's mostly fat. LOL!

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Thanks a lot. The funny thing is I just ran across golden flaxseeds the other day and bought a package. I like the look of the dark seeds in breads and savory muffins, but I thought the light seeds might look better in cakes and sweet muffins than the dark seeds do. Maybe it was fate that led me to get them, because I have everything I need to try baking this! I never even thought of using flaxseed to add moistness. But the way you explain it, it makes a lot of sense!

If that doesn't work I think I'll try Rob's suggestion the next time. A little added ricotta cheese might go well in the cake, too. It may be several days before I get the chance to try making it again, but when I do I'll come back here and report the results.

Thanks to everyone who added suggestions and advice.

Thank you, Maggie! I just made the Sour Cream Snack Cake again, this time replacing the oat flour with golden flax seed meal. And it worked! It tastes as delicious as it did the first time I made it, but this time it's also nicely moist. And, of course, there's another bonus -- it's lower in carbs made with flax seed than with oat flour. Yummm!

Woot! So glad this worked for you.

Ya, know, I've always loved to cook and had a reputation as quite a good one. That means I learned how to do things over a very many years. When I adopted a low carb lifestyle, it required learning a whole new bag of tricks with a whole bunch of unfamiliar ingredients.

I think you'll find that a couple of years from now, you'll be able to eyeball a recipe and "just know" what to change if it doesn't come out right.

Glad to hear you can have your cake and eat it.

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I'm known as an excellent cook. I can make a low-carb meal that people who sneer at low-carb absolutely love, and won't believe it when I tell them that they've just eaten the "dreaded low-carb." But as Henry said back a ways, "While cooking can be described as an art, baking is truly a science." I've studied art and am fairly competent at oils, acrylics and pastels, but I barely passed my required science classes. LOL

Seriously, I'm new here, but not to low-carb. I've been at that for almost ten years. But I've done very little baking, and just about all of what I did bake used vital wheat gluten. Now I've found I have celiac disease and can't eat gluten at all, so I'm starting from square one with the baking, using all new ingredients. And I appreciate your providing me with the first trick to fit into my new bag.

Nadine, L/c baking presents a lot of challenges. When you throw in gluten free the challanges are compounded. Here is a link to a l/c blog that contains several gluten free recipes that may provide you with some alternatives suitable for your requirements. HTH
Healthy Indulgences: Holiday Indulgences: Healthy Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake (a tribute to Paula Deen)

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Henry

Thanks, Henry. I went over there to take a look, and have been busily going down the list on the left side and clicking on every recipe! To be honest, many of them aren't to my taste, and others are more complicated than I care to try at this point (I've had major surgery six times, along with almost a year of chemotherapy and radiation therapy in the last four years, the last surgery only about a month ago) but I'm reading through every one of them anyway, and I think I'm learning some things that may help me when I'm ready to tackle baking full tilt!