Sucking The Joy Out Of Baking One Carb At A Time

I love to bake.

There’s something so incredibly soothing about baking for me. Cookies, cakes, pies. You name it, I’ll bake it. I even love to try and bake bread, but yeast and I have a love hate relationship. (As in, I love to try and use it, it hates to bloom and rise for me.)

But…I also have PCOS. For those not in the know, this is an oh-so-lovely medical problem that, in addition to a hundred other terrible things, makes your body struggle to process carbs. And so, if you want to get rid of any of the weight that PCOS piles on…you try to minimize carbs.

We’re not totally carb free around here. Reference above where I love to bake. But, some of the new things coming out as gluten free takes hold with more popularity also have the side bonus of being lower carb. And so, it was with scarcely controlled glee that I brought home a bag of gluten free baking mix (i.e. flour but not flour) that says you can sub it one-for-one with regular flour in all your recipes. And carb-wise, there was going to be quite a savings.

The first thing I made were one-bowl brownies. Because, hello? Brownies! They were…okay. The texture seemed a little off, but honestly I think I didn’t let the chocolate melt quite as thoroughly as it needed. At least, that’s what I chalked the granularity up to.

Next, though, were pancakes. They were…interesting. The middles didn’t cook unless you scorched the outsides. I didn’t make them any differently than I normally make pancakes. The batter seemed the same. But if you didn’t want crunchy, blackened outsides, you were going to get a nicely solid and cooked middle. But hey, we’re a doughy pancake family a lot of the time anyway, so no biggie. Right? The kids still slurped them down as perfect butter and syrup conveyances. (Honestly, what else are pancakes but delivery mechanisms for butter and syrup?)

Then on Wednesday night I made drop biscuits. On the outside, they looked pretty decent. They had the bumpy golden peaks that I associate with drop biscuits. They sounded right when I tapped on them. Then I cut one open. The middles were solid but…rubbery. And the outsides were so dry they were crumbly. So when you took a bite, the outside would crumble into oblivion all over your shirt and the middle would leave you chewing for ten minutes, not unlike a cow with its cud.

Again, the boys thought they were fine. (Thank goodness.) But hubs and I…well, the slight aftertaste of sawdust was even more off-putting than the rubbery consistency.

And now I have 4 pounds of my 5 pound bag of baking mix that I have to figure out how to use. Maybe it’ll taste better in a cake?