keto bread: better as a loaf

It's official: Victoria's keto bread is better as a loaf. It's a disappointingly small loaf, but it works as sandwich bread if you slice it right. Here's a series of photos.

out of the oven, no egg wash, now cooling down

after 90 minutes of cool-down

side view of the loaf, which looks compressed like banana bread

That said, the crumb doesn't look bad at all.

The more I thought about it, the more I thought this was a weird bread. It had two rising agents: active dry yeast and baking powder. And the recipe didn't call for any proofing time. I don't know what effect the yeast had aside from making the loaf smell good as it baked. Still, the end result was indeed a soft, decent crumb, and the bread's slight bitterness wasn't strong enough to be off-putting (if it were, I'd add some artificial sweetener next time).

I let this slice droop specifically to show you the soft texture.

I cut the loaf into two halves and ate the first half tonight.

I made tuna sandwiches with the bread after doing a pretty piss-poor job of slicing it up. It's got that almond-flour tendency to break or rip (almond flour has no gluten, and neither does bamboo flour; I might want to add a wee bit of vital wheat gluten to improve the structure slightly—the so-called gluten network).

My two tuna sandwiches—small but fairly filling.

side view, but still not enough to see the sandwich's interior

Here's the rather gross food-porn shot.

Conclusion: I think we have a winner as far as keto sandwich bread goes. The bread is indeed soft if you follow the recipe and don't try altering it the way I'd done yesterday. It could use a bit of improvement in terms of texture; I'd like it not to be so rippable/breakable. It's no good for hamburger buns because of the tendency of the outside to turn into a hard crust, even without the egg wash. I'll need to make two loaves, I think, to be able to last me through several sandwiches. Half a loaf is good for two or three sandwiches; I can now do keto tuna, bologna, grilled cheese, and other sandwiches with keto ingredients as long as I stay away from sugary things like sweet pickles, regular sauces (ketchup, BBQ, etc.), and other carby comestibles. It's just nice to know I can get back to sandwiches again, even if each sandwich is kind of small. My rendering of the recipe is here if you want to try this for yourself.

ADDENDUM: in reviewing Victoria's video, I came across a comment saying the person had successfully made hamburger buns with Victoria's recipe. The secret is to halve the baking time. I didn't halve mine, which may be part of the problem. I'll try the buns again with the amended baking time before I start experimenting with vital wheat gluten. Victoria also mentions that the yeast is there merely for taste. I'm now very curious to see how it would interact with vital wheat gluten. Let's get that yeast earning its keep!