Ketogenic Baking

In a world where there are so many different dietary choices now, I wanted to look at those who choose a ketogenic lifestyle. For those who don’t know, keto in a nut shell is; very-low carb and high in fats and because sugar is a carb you’ll find you need to alter your choices of sweeteners to keep those carbs low. The idea of a keto diet is to place the body into ketosis which switches the body into breaking down fats and ketones as opposed to carbs.
So, how on earth to you bake keto?
Turns out, it’s not that difficult but could get a bit pricey – so if you fancy the switch, prepare to face the cost. 


Here are a few staple replacements in the keto world:
• Almond flour
• Coconut flour
• Erythritol
• Almond Milk
• Oat Milk
Personally, the idea of a low-carb diet freaks me out – I just love them too much. But after diving into this world a little bit; I’ve seen that a few changes don’t usually have a detrimental effect on the final outcome of a bake. I found a recipe which promises a chocolatey and fudgy cake and uses only 7 ingredients. Considering it’s a keto recipe I was expecting a tonne of alternatives and fancy ingredients – but surprisingly instead of a traditional flour and caster sugar – instead they use almond flour, erythritol and give the option of using dairy free milk! 


Back in January, Tony brought you a fab no added sugar cake recipe; as bakers it’s definitely a tough one to avoid adding sugar and using alternative flours but there’s a whole world out there waiting to be explored. So why not give this recipe a go:


210g Almond flour – if you don’t fancy buying this but have almonds to hand; you could blitz these up yourself just make sure not to take it too far otherwise you’ll start to make almond butter instead!
35g cup cocoa powder

12g baking powder
2g salt
50g water or almond milk
150g eggs 
30g erythritol or ordinary sugar 
1 ½ tsp pure vanilla extract 


I will 100% be exploring this world more because as Tony said for sugar awareness week as a nation our sugar intake is more than recommended so any little tricks to keep it lower is a win in my book! 
Welcome to the world of Keto!
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Happy Baking,
Rachel

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