4 Keto Baking Tips for Beginners

This week's blog post features Darius, a keto baker, blogger, and YouTube personality who goes by the name Sugarless Crystals. He puts together some of the tastiest keto dessert recipes we have ever tried, and this week he is sharing his top 4 keto baking tips. Let's dive in:

I have eaten this way for over 5 years at the time of writing this. You guys are very lucky to have the amount of keto baked goods and desserts that are available to you. It’s almost impossible not to have a healthy snack to turn to when those sugar cravings hit. But, do you still crave cheat days?

Maybe the keto desserts you’ve had just don’t cut it for you. You’ve been making your own recipes or coming across really bad ones. Trust me! Pinterest is full of them. And, it can be quite tricky when starting out. The transition is different in the baking world. So, here are 4 keto baking tips to help you stay on track!

 

Keto Strawberry Cupcakes

 

When Baking Keto With Almond Flour

First, let’s talk about the difference between almond flour and almond meal. They are both made from ground almonds. Yet, almond meal has the husk of the almond within the meal itself.

Almond flour or 'blanched' almond flour doesn’t have the husk. This makes for a better ingredient to bake with because the husk affects the end result of your baked goods.

Blanched almond flour is by far one of the best and most popular flours to use on a keto diet because it bakes well. While a few people say it’s the closest to regular flour with gluten, I disagree and think this sets up unrealistic expectations. The truth is Almond flour bakes like almond flour, that’s it.

Gluten is a major factor in baking goods, but there is no keto-approved flour with gluten. Gluten provides the structure that we are used to. So, this is where the confusion comes because although almond flour makes a pretty good structure. It’s nothing like gluten. You can roll gluten, stretch it and it absorbs water. Almond flour doesn’t do any of these things other than absorbing a small amount of water. This is why you’ll see things such as gums, flax, or simply eggs added to the flour to bind and build the structure you want.

 

Coconut Flour Blueberry Muffins

 

Baking With Coconut Flour

I personally have a love-hate relationship with coconut flour. Coconut flour taught me quickly to respect it for what it was.

Coconut flour is dried, milled coconut. The differences will range in brands. Some brands mill the coconut flour finer than others. This is important because of how coconut flour behaves. The finer, the better.

Unlike almond flour that absorbs a small amount of water. Coconut flour is super absorbent and will take in every bit of liquid until maximum saturation.

A typical recipe comparing the two will go like this:

  • 1 cup almond flour with 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup coconut flour with 4-6 eggs

Why is this?

Coconut flour creates a very dense and dry baked good whatever it may be. Adding so many eggs helps create structure but there are major downfalls to this.

An eggy tasting and eggy textured baked good.. Not very appealing is it?

Yet, there is a place for coconut flour. I personally find the absorbent properties of coconut flour are very useful in pancakes and waffles.

Coconut flour is popular amongst people who don’t like ingesting nuts from almond flour. Or those who have a nut allergy.

 

Coconut Flour Pancakes

Coconut Flour Pancakes

 

Are Keto Desserts Good? How To Make The Best

 

For years I have preached the best keto desserts have a mix of keto-friendly flours. Each flour has its own properties so a little of this and that creates harmony.

Almond flour with a little coconut flour makes an amazing dessert. Almond flour by itself can be spongy. But, coconut flour by itself is dry and dense. So, when you combine the two you get a very harmonizing mix. ChipMonk found the genius mix as well which is why I respect their cookies so much.

But what are the best sweeteners?

  • Allulose
  • Monk Fruit
  • Stevia

Sweetness is a huge factor in desserts. They work the same way. Mixing your sweeteners is the best thing the same as the flours. Notice ChipMonks allulose and monk fruit blend?

Stevia is great as well. But, stevia has a very strong aftertaste that is very off-putting to someone that’s never had it before.

One thing that is terrible to do is to use one sweetener thinking the more you add the sweeter the dessert will get. This is a mistake!

The only way to bring the sweetness up is to bring in another sweetener for support.

 

Keto chocolate donuts

Keto Chocolate Donuts

 

At this point in time, keto desserts are amazing. Between companies like ChipMonk and excellent recipes, the choices you can find online are endless.

Never Do This When Baking On Keto

There are not many one for one swaps!

Never swap out almond flour for coconut flour. Just can’t do it! They behave too differently and it’ll be a disaster. In order to swap the two, you’d have to completely rework the recipe. As mentioned above, notice the difference in the eggs and also there’s a difference in the overall moisture.

Never add too much of one sweetener to increase sweetness. Instead, bring in another sweetener to help. When you continue to add more of one sweetener you increase the aftertaste that the sweetener typically brings. When mixing additional sweeteners you can cancel out any aftertaste that comes.

When you add eggs this lowers the sweetness as well so be conscious of this. Also, temperature affects these things. A hot dessert will come across more sweet. The same dessert at a cold temperature will be less sweet. All while having the exact same ingredients.

chocolate keto cake

Chocolate Lover's Keto Cake

In conclusion, you can master baking on keto, and you only need a fed ingredients. My biggest suggestion is to trust the experts and make recipes how the creator suggest the first time around. As a beginner, learn how these ingredients interact with one another and then begin experimenting.

When studying anything I’ve always been taught learn the basics. Learn the rules, then break the rules.

When all else fails, simply buy a dessert from ChipMonk 😆

 

Thank you Darius for sharing your Keto expertise! Please visit SugarlessCrystals.com or click on any of these delicious photos to view the full recipes. Remember to subscribe to our newsletter for the latest keto baking tips, recipes, and ChipMonk updates. Thanks for reading! 🐿 🐿

1 comment

  • intrigued!

    Monita Gruhlke

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