Very Low Carb Flour Mix

 

When I first began low carb baking seriously three years ago, I had way more failures than I did successes. No one flour seemed to make anything edible—especially for my sons and husband.

 

Almond flour was too heavy. I didn’t understand how much liquid/how many eggs to use with coconut flour—plus the texture was just off when I followed recipes using solely coconut flour. Don’t even get me started on the recipes I tried using straight flax or oat fiber.

 

Then I started reading about low carbers who were having success at combining non-grain flours. Caroline, from All Day I Dream About Food, and other healthy recipe bloggers used two thirds to three fourths almond flour and the remainder of coconut flour quite often in recipes.

Other low carbers had various combinations—and some were even in mix form (that you mix up and use cup-for-cup in place of regular flour). This appealed to me because I have been a “make a mix” cook for many years (starting twenty-five years ago this summer with the book Make a Mix Cookery).

 

Thus, I began a quest to combine low carb flours into a baking mix that my family would eat—and that didn’t taste so “off.” (I also began making various low carb mixes—cake mix, brownie mix, “Bisquick,” bbq base, cream cheese dessert base, and so on.

 

I have probably tried over twenty different variations in the past three years or so. I had tried putting in some “gluten free” flours (that bake more like white wheat flour) and oat flour—both in an effort to dilute the low carb-not-real-flours. The results were better tasting, but the carb count was a little high.

 

I then came to the conclusion that I needed a basic flour combination that I could live with—and then mix it with oat flour, sprouted wheat flour, and/or gluten free blends to get a more normal taste when I am baking for my kids.

 

I have since developed a Sprouted Flour Mix recipe that I use in yeast baking (yes, with low carb rolls and breads at five to eight net carbs each!!!)—and that I combine with this mix to get that more “normal” taste for times that I want healthy and fairly low carb but I want someone besides me to eat it! 🙂

 

(See my article, “The Power of Dilution,” here.)

 

I know that I will get asked if you can sub this or that—and you can. The combination is up to you and is dependent upon your budget, the availability of products, your family’s taste, and even your carb “budget.” I have put the approximate carb count of the products that I use in this mixture in parentheses.

 

I will say, though, that if you can bite the bullet and buy the products and make it one time, you will have the products for refills of the mix over and over since it uses small amounts of various things and since it is a bulk mix (makes a lot). (Then I recommend buying the products one at a time each month or however often you order or go to stores carrying the products, so that it will not feel overwhelming to continue making the mix cost-wise.)

 

I first published this on my homeschooling/parenting blog (Character Ink Press), and it is by far my most popular recipe. I have had many people write in telling me that after trying many low carb flour mixes, they tried this one and had great results. People often say that it acts the most like “regular flour” than any combination they have used!

 

 

General Guidelines for Substitutions:

 

(1) Obviously, any substitutions will potentially alter the final outcome of a recipe and the taste (at least from what my recipe tester and I got when we made it just as is). Keep that in mind when using substitutions.

(2) If you want to keep the mix super low carb (as it is written), be sure to substitute products with the same or similar carb count. (For example, oat fiber has a zero carb net count so if you substitute oat flour {at approximately eighty carbs per cup} for oat fiber, the carbohydrate total will be MUCH higher than a version with oat fiber.)

(3) You can also double some of the flours that have the same count and omit one. This would make fewer number of total products to buy, but you are going to miss a little bit of the dilution factor if you do not care for the taste of any one single flour.

(4) If you are making substitutions, I would be careful that the coconut flour is not more than twenty-five percent of the total mix since it requires much more moisture (especially eggs) in order to bake with it straight up. Your baked goods might be too dry with too much coconut flour.

(5) I gave a few suggestions in the recipe to help you with substitutions. If you are trying to just buy a couple of things to start with, you could do a combination of ½ almond flour, ¼ coconut flour, and ¼ oat fiber and then grow from there as your budget allows.

 

So….here is the final version (!). I will link recipes to this Very Low Carb Mix as I put them up.

Also, remember to watch for the e-book containing this mix!! It will likely follow Sugar-Free Solutions; Healthy Mixes: Sugar-Free, Flour-Free; Healthy Mixes: Cream Cheese Dessert Base. It will be called Healthy Mixes: Two Healthy Flour Mixes (Sprouted Flour Mix and Very Low Carb Flour Mix).

This blog is an incremental blog—if you start with the first e-book and move through them, you will learn how to cook and bake with healthy sugar-free substitutes, then flourless baking and candy making, then flour mixes, etc.—all from a curriculum author of seventy books totaling fifty thousand pages who loves to teach incrementally!

Thank-you for joining me!

Note: Given carb counts are from the products that I used and are all net carbs—total carbs minus fiber.

 

Download my Low Carb Flour Chart, complete with carb counts for many different kinds of low-carb flours!

 

Below are links to the ingredients I use in this recipe. I am an affiliate for Amazon.com. If you click on the links below I will earn a small commission. Thank you for your support of this blog!

 

3.9 from 14 reviews
Very Low Carb Flour Mix
Author: 
 
Net Carbs (per cup): 10 grams
Ingredients
  • 3 cups almond flour (12 net carbs per cup–TOTAL 36)
  • 1 cup coconut flour (24 net carbs per cup–TOTAL 24)
  • ½ cup oat fiber OR ground golden flax (0 net carbs per cup–TOTAL 0)
  • ½ cup vital wheat gluten (OR if you do not want gluten in your mix, use 1 / 8* cup Xantham Gum; I love putting gluten in my low carb baked goods) (24 net carbs per cup–TOTAL 12)
  • Optional: ½ cup plain whey protein powder (OR may be omitted or just increase almond flour) (16 net carbs per cup–TOTAL 8)
Instructions
  1. Note: Carb counts vary among products. For example, some gluten free flours have 110 carbs per cup, while Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Flour has eighty! Be sure to check carb counts on various products!
  2. Makes approximately six total cups. Each cup has approximately 12 NET carbs in it.
  3. Combine all ingredients thoroughly.
  4. Store in an airtight container.
Nutrition Information
Serving size: 1 cup Calories: 580 Fat: 34 Carbohydrates: 10 Fiber: 42 Protein: 42

 

While this Basic Flour Mix can be used in place of almond flour alone or in place of any flours in a recipe (can be used to replace almond flour, coconut flour, and whey protein, for example, in a recipe that has all three of those items), here are a couple of my recipes to get you started using this mix:

1. Low Carb Crepes
2. Chicken Noodle Soup
3. BEST Low Carb Biscuits

 

very-low-carb-flour-mix-nutrition-label

 

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Recipe Keys

 

Low Carb (VLC): This is about as low carb of a mixture that you will get in low carb baking (except for straight up flax or oat fiber). You could get approximately the same carb count with almond flour alone, but I don’t like feeding us huge handfuls of nuts over and over again every time we eat any baked good. (I know the low carb high fat people say it doesn’t matter, but it feels like it matters!) I also like the “dilution factor” of using multiple non-grain flours in a mix.

 

Family Friendly (FF): Again, to make this more Family-Friendly—or to just create a healthier baking mix for your family that is not reliant on processed or over-consumed white flour and other grains, you can do a couple of things: (1) Make this as it is listed and use it half and half with oat flour, quinoa flour, sprouted wheat, or other higher-carb flours that bake up more like regular grains; (2) Make this almost as it is given but use a higher carb flour for any of the really low ones. For example, if you use Bob’s Red Mill Oat Flour or sprouted white wheat flour for some of the flours, you can still end up with a forty-carb-per-cup mix that is healthy as opposed to a one-hundred-carb-per-cup grain (white or wheat flour) that is less healthy. Family-Friendly Low Carbing is a very healthy approach to baking! (3) Make this as is and use it combined with my Sprouted Flour Mix as needed to “dilute” the tastes.

 

Store-Bought-Stella (SBS): While this is not an SBS model, it is that mindset—get something you can use easily and quickly later so that you don’t have to spend so much time mixing flours, getting out various products all at once, etc. Make the mix once (or double it!), and you have a “homemade convenience food.”

 

Homemade Hannah (HH): This is very homemade! You can make this completely whole-foods as written above. Coming from a HH background myself (out of necessity of cooking for a family of nine on one income), I adore mixes and always have. If you are a HH who has never used mixes, keep following this blog. You will love what is coming up!
Freezer Cooking (FC): This isn’t in my monthly freezer entrees since it really isn’t an entrée; however, you can make up a double batch and store one in your pantry for everyday use and put one batch in the freezer for later.

 

Trim Healthy Mama-Friendly (THM) (www.trimhealthymama.com): This is an S baking mix as it is written due to the heavy almond flour amount. However, it could easily be made into a Fuel Pull or an E mix by reducing the amount of almond flour. For the FP, you would reduce the amount of almond flour and replace it with oat fiber. For the E mix, you would reduce the amount of almond flour and replace it with oat flour or sprouted wheat flour. Easy peasy! Also, like the suggestions above for the Family-Friendly folks, you could make it as it is listed and then use half and half—half Basic Low Carb Flour Mix and half oat fiber for FP OR half Basic Low Carb Flour Mix and half oat flour or sprouted wheat for E mix. (I do not do much FP or E baking, but I would make this mix as is and then combine it with Sprouted Flour Mix anytime you want to make an E baked good. Easy peasy!)

 

Sugar Free (SF): Sugar-free!

 

Gluten Free (GF): This can definitely be gluten-free if you do not add the gluten and you are sure your oat fiber is completely gluten free. Again, just like the Family-Friendly and the THM E mix options given above, if you are not after low carb but simply after healthier and gluten-free baking options, you may omit the lower carb flours (oat fiber, golden flax, etc.) and use part oat flour or part gluten-free flour. (Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Flour is the lowest carb gluten-free flour I have found—by many carbs in some cases!) Also, you can do the option of making it as is and using half Basic Low Carb Flour Mix and half gluten-free flour for a healthier alternative to just gluten-free flour (which is often made with corn starch, rice flour, and other “white” flours).

 

 

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