keto-burger success!

Today was a victory. If Victoria weren't already a married mom, I'd marry her. Her keto-bread recipes, when done her way and without my attempting to put a "twist" on anything, have pretty much all proven to be successes. The keto loaf I'd baked earlier was great for tuna sandwiches (if a little meager in size). When I'd messed up those burger buns before, while using the keto white-bread loaf recipe, I went wrong by baking the buns for the same amount of time I'd bake the loaf. Result: hard, dense, dry bread that reminded me of any number of keto breads I'd attempted before (except the recent carnivore buns). The burger buns I just baked came from a recipe using Victoria's "perfected" keto flour, which no longer has bamboo fiber. Instead, the new flour is a mix of bleached almond flour, oat-fiber powder, egg-white protein powder, and xanthan gum. The burger-bun recipe calls for the perfected flour plus warm water, baking powder (a lot—4 teaspoons), salt, and eggs (4 again). The xanthan gum and eggs help provide the structure normally provided by gluten in normal bread. I was sorely tempted to throw in some vital wheat gluten, but this wasn't a yeast-bread recipe, so I'm not sure the gluten would have made sense. Instead, the rising agent was baking powder, almost like a soda bread, which usually has baking soda.

The result of mixing all the bun ingredients together is a batter, not a dough, somewhat reminiscent of that keto-"baguette" recipe I'd been enchanted with (and which I still like). I glopped the batter into four burger tins (molds, whatever), and followed the instructions to get the bake time right. I didn't bother with the egg wash and sesame sprinkle; Victoria recommends about a 25-30-minute bake time, with the egg wash and sesame seeds being applied at around the 20-minute mark. At the 20-minute mark, I switched the oven to activate the top burner, and thus added color naturally, through simple heat instead of an egg wash (which is kind of a cheat—not that I'm against it). As you see below, the buns from this different bread recipe (specifically for burger buns) puffed up significantly more than did the buns from my abortive attempt (made from a white-bread loaf recipe). but the buns still look as lumpy as when I glopped the batter into the tins:

optimistically puffy (because still hot)

wrinkled and wizened like Yoda; a bit shrunken after cooling, but not much

I'm not a big fan of Pam (the spray), but I used it on the tins.

The buns weren't nearly as heavy as they looked, which was a relief. But how was the crumb? How did the buns taste? I knew I wouldn't be eating more than two burgers, so I had two buns that I could experiment with. I bit into one. Behold:

decent crumb... and the taste!

I was delighted to discover that the bun I'd bitten into was soft and airy, not hard and dense, with a crumb containing plenty of bubbles from all of that baking soda, but without any bitter aftertaste. Nor was there any bitter aftertaste arising from bamboo fiber: as mentioned above, Victoria's new, "perfected" flour contained no bamboo this time. I didn't think her first flour recipe was bad, but the new recipe is definitely better—something I noticed while the bread was baking: it smelled distinctly better.

So I couldn't wait to split two buns open and prep some burgers. I had a lot of patties in the freezer, so I split my two buns and thawed out two burgers.

The discolorations in the bread might be from unmixed egg-white powder. I don't know.

The plan was to gussy up the burgers with mayo, BBQ sauce, jalapeños, pickles, and black pepper—just as a way to use up what's left in my fridge before I travel to the States. I had followed a recipe for keto barbecue sauce that ended up being utterly mediocre. Lacking any sugar, the sauce felt hollow and empty, as if it were missing an essential taste (undoubtedly from the sugar that would've/should've been there). So I mixed the faux-BBQ sauce with a half-full bottle of regular KC Masterpiece sauce (very sugary), thus creating a 50%-sugar sauce. That was an improvement. I mayo'ed up my buns, 'waved the burgers with jalapeños and cheese (American and Gruyère), added some black pepper and pickles, and took time to take the following photos, thus ensuring that I wouldn't be eating until the burgers were both cold. The things I do for you.

The jalapeños are hiding under the slice of American cheese.

If the texture of the Gruyère looks wonky, it's because I'd frozen and thawed it. Never again.

overhead view

ready to go

food-porn shot 1

food-porn shot 2 (with the burger too dark)

One Skillshare course I want to take is about photographing food. I never get the light balance right, and I only ever use auto filters. Here's the final shot, from the side:

almost 100% keto, except for the half-sugared BBQ sauce

Keto burger buns will never be a perfect substitute for the real thing. As much as I sneer at the cliché nature of brioche burger buns, I kind of miss them: they're the real deal—real carbs—and you can taste that. I suppose I could add some monkfruit or BochaSweet (expensive, but perfect for baking) or allulose to these buns to sweeten them up as well, but even then, artificial sugar lacks that certain oomph. And I think I've thought of a solution to the problem of the buns' lumpiness. The next time I make these buns, after I'm back from the States, I'll implement my solution, we'll see how that goes, and you can guess how I did it.

In sum, this keto-bun recipe is a winner. Finally! While I still like the carnivore-bun recipe (very soft and even more bun-like in texture despite the collapsed-soufflé look), Victoria's recipe is infinitely easier to make. It may have slightly more carbs per bun, but it's worth it.