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Can I use your baking mix and THM Baking Blend interchangeably?
In small amounts (up to 4 T), yes, generally. In larger amounts, use a little less of my baking mix than the THM Baking Blend called for. My mix is a little drier than Baking Blend so not as much is needed. Check out my baking mix recipe page for more details. You can check the comments on that post for suggestions about THM Baking Blend recipes that work well with my baking mix. Here is a list of my recipes that I have tested with my Baking Mix.
Are oat flour and oat fiber the same thing?
In a word, no. Oat flour is ground-up oats (you can do this in a good blender or coffee grinder) and thus a carb source. Oat fiber has no carbs or fats and can be purchased online. I like to buy it from Netrition, but Trim Healthy Mama carries a gluten free product. Oat flour and oat fiber are very different in texture, so they are not a 1:1 substitution.
Can I substitute another sweetener for the sweetener you have listed in the recipe?
Probably. Some recipes specifically call for a granulated sweetener for bulking purposes, and as I noted below, I don’t recommend using pure stevia alone to sweeten chocolate recipes. You can check out this sweetener conversion chart for help converting between sweeteners. My favorite all purpose sweetener is THM Super Sweet Blend (I use it for baking). Pure Stevia Extract Powder is more concentrated and therefore more economical, so I use that where I can (it works great in my ice cream recipes! I use it in certain baked goods, and sometimes I use it in conjunction with THM Super Sweet Blend for best flavor.). Truvia (can be purchased at Walmart and Sam’s Club) and THM Gentle Sweet are also great sweeteners that I’ve used. THM Gentle Sweet is a tasty sweetener blend that measures more like Truvia, is already in a powdered form, and tastes just like sugar (it’s great for sweetening chocolate recipes!). Xylitol is a good sweetener that measures basically like sugar, but it doesn’t like everyone’s digestive tracts and can cause gas and bloating so start with small amounts and work your way up to see how it affects you and let your body adjust. I don’t like the flavor of erythritol, so I rarely use it.
What flour can I substitute for the ones you used?
First off, check out my Baking Mix recipe! It’s so handy to have a blend of flours already made. Most recipes made with alternative flours do best when a blend of flours is used.
That is a loaded question. The best advice I can give you when it comes to substituting flours is to not substitute unless you’re pretty savvy with alternative baking. Different flours soak up different amounts of liquid and have different properties that you have to work around. If you don’t have the flours I used, you’ll have to do a little experimenting on your own. I’ll give you a quick synopsis of some of the flours I use:
- GOLDEN FLAX SEED MEAL (low-carb) – I grind flax seeds in my coffee grinder. The golden flax tastes better than the dark flax. Flax flour is cheap and versatile, but use too much with no other prominent flavors to mask it and you’ll taste flax. I like to use flax flour combined with other flours so I can make use of its cheap bulk without its flavor. Too much flax flour can add an eggy texture to baked goods; it can also be used as a binder (ever heard of a “flax egg”?). Almond flour can usually work as a substitute for flax flour.
- ALMOND FLOUR (low-carb) – I use very little of this because of the price. In fact, I’ve never bought any, but I’ve been given some on a few occasions. I hoard my gifted almond flour for use in crusts because it does a great job there.
- COCONUT FLOUR (low-carb) – This is a great flour that I’ve recently started using because Sam’s Club carries it for a great price! Coconut flour is tricky to bake with as it soaks up a tremendous amount of liquid. You need much less coconut flour than either almond or flax flours. Coconut flour requires lots of “conditioners” such as eggs, sour cream/yogurt, and liquid. If you know how to use it, it works great! If you don’t…crumbly and gritty. Substitutions can be especially tricky with this flour because of these variables. Check out this article from All Day I Dream About Food about baking with coconut flour.
- OAT FIBER (low-carb, low-fat) – This flour is very fine, and I like to use it to thicken gravies and puddings. I also use it combined with other flours for baking. Like coconut flour, oat fiber soaks up a lot of liquid and your end product can be gritty if too much oat fiber is used.
- OAT FLOUR (low-fat) – Not to be confused with oat fiber, oat flour is just ground-up oats. It is not interchangeable with oat fiber because of the differences in nutritional info as well as the extreme texture differences. Things made with oat flour tend to sink on top as well as be slightly gummy, so keep that in mind when creating recipes using this flour. Oat flour makes a great cheap flour, so I’ve started using it more. Things made with oat flour can actually be fairly normal-tasting if done right.
Can glucomannan and xanthan gum be used interchangeably in your recipes?
Generally, yes. I do have slight preferences of one over the other in certain cases, so I always call for the one I prefer.
How do I convert between different brands of gelatin?
Check out this post for details.
How do I make healthy homemade ice cream?
Check out this post to get all your questions answered.
Tips:
- Just experiment – I give you recipes that I have tried and can stand behind. If you have to make substitutions, you have to be responsible for your own results because I can’t test every eventuality for everyone. I can tell you where I would start experimenting, and after that it’s up to you! If you’re unfamiliar with using alternative flours and sweeteners in baking, you’ll have some flops no doubt. But that’s all part of the learning curve. It’ll come.
- Use a blend of flours – this is one of the most important things I’ve found in low-carb baking. Generally, using a blend of flours will yield the best results, texture and taste wise. I’ve formulated my own blend, which you can find the recipe for here.
- Don’t use straight stevia to sweeten chocolate things. Don’t ask me why, but it just doesn’t work very well. A granulated sweetener such as THM Gentle Sweet, Truvia, THM Super Sweet Blend, or xylitol will work better in chocolate settings. Often I use a blend of Pure Stevia Extract Powder and a granulated sweetener for cost efficiency.
- Heat makes things not as sweet. Keep this in mind as you taste batters before baking. If you got too much sweetener in it, chances are after baking and refrigeration, it’ll be edible. If you under-sweetened, better luck next time.
- As a general rule, less is more when it comes to alternative sweeteners, especially pure stevia. Start with less than you’ll need, taste, and keep adding sweetener a little bit at a time, tasting as you go. Here’s a helpful article from Gwen’s Nest about sweetening with stevia. THM Gentle Sweet is a more forgiving sweetener for those people getting used to alternative baking.
- Refrigeration overnight helps most low-carb baked goods immensely in terms of texture and taste. Don’t ask me why, but that’s just the way it is.